The Honeyeater (Jessie Tu, A&U)

The Honeyeater is the second novel by Jessie Tu, acclaimed author of A Lonely Girl Is a Dangerous Thing. The story centres around Fay, an academic and emerging translator who works on English-to-Taiwanese literary translations. Over the course of the novel, Fay holidays in Paris, works in Sydney and attends a conference in Taipei, but her world feels small. Mostly, she moves between her university office and the apartment she shares with her mother, Helen, and engages with the world meaningfully through reading and translating. When Fay and Helen travel to Paris—an attempt by Fay to please her mother and perhaps bridge the gap between them—we learn some important things about Fay: she’s working on her first solo translation, she’s recently broken off a relationship with a married man, and she’s a liar. The Honeyeater is a multi-layered story that uses the lens of literary translation to examine complex relationships: parent and child, mentor and mentee, secret lovers and old flames. Fay uses her skills as a translator to interpret and find meaning in a text but fails to apply these skills in her life and relationships. Tu’s writing is seamless and her characters have realistic flaws. Through Fay, she explores femininity, identity, grief, loneliness and what brings meaning to our lives. This book is an intelligent study of people for readers of Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au and fans of Tessa Hadley.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Danielle Bagnato is a book reviewer and marketing and communications professional. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

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