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DIAMOND HILL by Kit Fan

DIAMOND HILL

by Kit Fan

Pub Date: May 4th, 2021
ISBN: 9781-64286-088-7
Publisher: World Editions

A lost soul is stuck between the slums and salvation.

It's 1987. The narrator is a recovering heroin addict, sent by a dying Thai monk to live in a run-down Hong Kong convent. There, he sleeps in a dark, leaky shed and has sex with a wannabe movie star who calls herself Audrey Hepburn. The world of this novel is a treacherous and liminal place to be. There are still 10 years to go before Britain hands Hong Kong over to China, but the preliminary corruption and squalor are well afoot. Diamond Hill, once a Hong Kong slice of Hollywood (Audrey Hepburn claims to have once dated Bruce Lee), is now a shantytown packed with makeshift dwellings that could scarcely be called homes. The towering cranes and encroaching real estate developers share space with heroin addicts and dealers, the latter including Audrey Hepburn’s teen daughter, who goes simply by Boss. Amid this chaos our down-and-out hero sifts for salvation in a place where mere survival might be a more realistic goal. Fan’s prose is both minimalist and highly descriptive; the darker the spiritual corner, the more light he shines. Here’s the protagonist, fiending for a fix: “I scratched my arms until I drew blood, but seeing my blood only made me crave heroin more. The dried blood smelt like a rare steak. I kept licking the wounds for comfort.” He’s a compelling character with a passive streak; he would seemingly settle for being a keen observer. Instead, like Rick in Casablanca, he can’t help but stick his neck out. Fan deftly mixes the sacred with the profane, often on the same page. Just when you decide there’s no room for holiness amid the wreckage, you realize there may in fact be no other option.

An introduction to a seamy slice of Hong Kong—plus a convent.