Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung

I won’t go so far as to say ‘unpolished turd’ but this book had all the fizz of a flat bottle of softie. As I did the directionless browse in the bookstore (see Hammill’s Winchester review), the blurb got me: “This book does not begin on a boat. Nor does it contain any wild swans or falling leaves” which I thought was a clever nod to the influx of Asian memoirs in recent years. I’d also recognised Pung from a few Age bylines, so it was a tantalising combination of leftie writer and learning more about other cultures and feeling as part of a global community (see Stuff White People Like).

There’s no doubt Alice is likeable, has her heart in the right place and had an interesting upbringing, with her family displaced in a refugee camp as they fled from the Khmer Rouge. It purposely avoids the heaviness of books that have gone before it like ‘The Killing Fields’ and ‘Before They Killed My Father’, instead focussing on the more suburban challenges of growing up Asian in Australia. Unfortunately this material is clumsily handled; the comedy is a bit forced, as are the tender moments. I wanted to know more about Alice’s parents, but you got the distinct sense that Alice herself was viewing them from the outside looking in, so there was never that much insight into their lives.

Like Judith Lucy’s autobiography, I would have happily read Unpolished Gem as a Good Weekend feature, but as a whole book it feels a little flimsy.