Search for belonging

MAP OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD
By Tash Aw
HarperCollins, $34.99

This is a novel about alienated, homeless, outsider figures in a place where everyone seems to come from somewhere else. Set in Indonesia in the early 60s, it's the story of a group of people whose lives are as scattered as the islands they live on.

Adam is an orphan, separated from his only brother and then adopted by Karl de Willigen, a Dutch Indonesian who was once an idealistic artist and has become a sort of benign colonial clinging to his life on the fictional island of Perdo despite political upheaval.

When Karl is taken away by soldiers, 16-year-old Adam must leave the safety of the only home he's ever known and travel to Jakarta to try to find him. Guided by his father's old letters and photos, he tracks down Margaret, an American expat in her 40s who was once in love with Karl. Forming a protective, motherly bond with the young stranger, she sets out to revisit old contacts in a bid to rescue Karl from prison or repatriation and reunite him with his adopted son.

There's also a repetitive parallel storyline about Adam's brother Johan, adopted by a rich family in Malaysia, haunted by guilt at abandoning his brother and on a fast-track to self-destruction.

The first part of this book, detailing Adam's small island childhood, is a beautiful thing. Aw's writing is free and lyrical, evoking the confused emotions of a lost child, the ushness of Indonesia and the touching bond between a man and a boy.

It's when Aw moves Adam to the broader, messier canvas of Jakarta that this novel seems to lose its way, torn between its two themes of a young man's search for a place to belong and the difficult birth of a nation. The plot starts relying on stock characters: the cynical journalist, the dodgy guy from the American Embassy, the young man burning with revolutionary fervour. Adam gets caught up and carried along by them as the author wrestles with the points he wants to make.

A sensitive and talented writer, Aw is a Malaysian living in London who won awards for his first novel The Harmony Silk Factory, which was also longlisted for the 2005 Man Booker Prize. Unfortunately, the storytelling in this promising follow-up is flawed.

Tash Aw is appearing at the Auckland Writers & Readers' Festival