Fragile Creatures (Khin Myint, Black Inc.)

Debut author Khin Myin’s Fragile Creatures is a remarkable memoir in many ways. Myin’s writing is gracious and honest; at its core, his life story is devastatingly sad. The opening chapter reveals Khin’s terminally ill sister, Theda, has obtained the euthanasic drug Nembutal to use as her ‘escape hatch’, while Khin has been abruptly dumped by his American fiancé. Fragile Creatures straddles these two equally dark worlds: Theda’s endless battle for health relief and Khin’s trip to the US to confront Rachel and the fate of their relationship. While the memoir offers interesting discussions on Theda’s complex illnesses—ranging from mental and physical health issues to chronic fatigue syndrome and Lyme disease—Khin’s reflections on masculinity and racism in Australian culture are the most captivating, albeit disturbing. As the child of a Burmese father and an English mother and raised in an unwelcoming Perth, Khin remarks that ‘racism feels like an overwhelming message from many people and places that there is something wrong with you and that you deserve bad things’. Khin’s engaging narrative style keeps you reading but it’s worth noting and warning that there are discussions of suicide throughout the book. I yearned for his ‘fragile creatures’—his sister, mother and father—to discover the support they desperately needed: a cure for Theda, liberation for his mother, and for his father, reconciliation with his estranged family. Fragile Creatures is a sobering yet poignant read for anyone interested in authentic human stories that touch the heart, including readers who enjoyed Anna Jacobson’s similarly fragile memoir, How to Knit a Human.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Michelle Atkins is a communications professional and published educational author. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

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