That Longing to Belong

By Anna Tan

Review of These Deathless Shores by P.H. Low (USA: Orbit, 2024)

There are times when you pick up a book and find yourself written into its pages; there’s a feeling of being at home, of being known. Then there are times when a Malaysian American author’s tweet that their debut novel is “Malaysia-inspired” sets you afire, only to have the book gently let you down…

To be clear, These Deathless Shores is a Captain Hook origin story that takes place in an alternate world. There’s no Britain or Malaysia to place real-world expectations on. Neverland—or simply, the Island—physically exists in a Bermuda Triangle–like space that very few can access. However, there’s a “Ritt” that has all the trappings of the British Empire and a “Burima” (plus several other countries) with a postcolonial vibe. Then there’s that familiar feeling that Charlotte “Chay” Makta expresses so clearly, of having “watched every animated Rittan princess movie ever made … [and wanting] those lives so badly.”

In this reimagining, Peter is a dark, heartless creature that cannot grow up and does not change. The Lost Boys are an ever-changing list of faces who mysteriously disappear once they grow too old. Tink is just a Dust-producing fairy with little agency or personality. There’s not much sense of a grand adventure, just a weariness of a battle fought for too long. It’s not a story for the innocent young. The reader is meant to sympathise with the pirates—adults who somehow get washed up ashore the Island, or old Boys who now find themselves becoming the villains of their own story.

It is, primarily, a dark fantasy about addiction, desire, and revenge. Jordan Makta’s addiction to Dust—and the drugs she uses to replace it—is killing her, and her only plan for survival is to return to the Island to take Tink for herself. This nebulous plan circles around her need for revenge against Peter for kicking her off the Island—killing Peter will give her Tink and the Dust she needs to survive; alternatively, stealing Tink will prove she’s better than Peter. Baron Teoh, Jordan’s best friend, is trying to grow up in a world that seems to have left him behind—but he leaves a life of failing university exams to face his childhood trauma for Jordan (again). And Chay just wants to be like Jordan—or to succeed where her elder sister failed.

A Story of Perpetual Exclusion

Some of P.H. Low’s previous short fiction has been about complex family relationships and that feeling of being othered, and here, Low leans into the Us vs Them motif: the Island against the Outside, childhood vs adulthood, boys vs girls, pirates vs Lost Boys, Peter Pan vs Captain Hook, Jordan vs Chay. I could not quite figure out where the Pales stood; they variably fought with or against the Boys, yet they seemed to be adults with pale complexions—a commentary, maybe, that white people are somehow “allowed” to make their own rules?

But maybe what Low’s pointing out is that there are places where not everyone is allowed in. Spaces where we long to be, yet know that we’re not welcome in through no fault of our own. The focus here is on the battle to break through closed doors—and in this narrative, specifically on the way women are rebelling against the many classic fantasy and adventure stories that were written for only one gender:

Someday, another kid with the “wrong” kind of body would wash up on the Island, dreaming of an adventure beyond darning socks and waving the Boys goodbye. Someday they would learn to build their castles high—if not with glamour, then their own shields and blades and words; to forge a thousand kingdoms’ worth of reasons they were more than the thing between their legs already conspiring to betray them.

Both Jordan and Chay set out to the Island for the same thing—to go on the adventures they’ve read about in books and watched in movies. But there are no roles for girls on the Island, other than the mother figure of Ama (who must be a prepubescent girl!).

At eight years old, Jordan’s solution is to use the Dust to change herself—it creates a hand to replace her missing limb; turns her appearance into a mirror of Baron’s so that they can fit into the role of the Twins. It works for a few years, until she grows up and her period comes. Thrown back out to the real world, she asks for drugs, “the kind that will take away my period.” It initially feels like an exploration of gender dysphoria or transgenderism, yet Jordan still identifies as a woman, admitting:

… she had never thought of herself as a man. There were surgeries for that … but she had never particularly longed for a beard or a dick, even if she despised the idea of being seen as a woman without them.

This reads, to me, as not a fight against her own gender, but against the constraints and stereotypes of the story itself. It’s amusing that Baron—the one actually invited to the Island—is himself only a reluctant participant swept up in his would-be lover’s desires.

Chay is invited to the Island by Peter at the age of nine, which she snaps up as a chance to look for her missing sister. The three-years age difference between Jordan and Chay provides context for Chay’s initial sister-worship of Jordan, though that quickly morphs into rivalry in response to Jordan’s rejection. Chay then throws herself into the role of Ama, starving herself as her only resort to keep puberty at bay. She knows that the minute her period comes, she, too, will be chased away. She fears a loss of control, describing it as being “trapped in a body that would swell and bleed, swell and bleed.”

Writing Yourself into the Story

“The only way we’ll get an ending to this story,” [Jordan] said, keeping her voice light, “is if we write it ourselves.”

Just as Jordan usurped the role of a Lost Boy as a child, her hatred for Peter and her rallying of the pirates in her bid for revenge soon cast her into a new role: that of Captain Hook. The Island confirms it with the gift of the actual hook, “a stiff leather harness, a complication of buckles and straps, but her teeth and left hand found their way around them as if she’d done this her whole life.” Evidence too, maybe, that the Island is slowly changing in response to the world outside.

There’s a clamour for representation in fiction—and Low centres this longing to be seen and to belong in These Deathless Shores. It might seem a little overwhelming at times, as if they’ve stuffed in every issue they can think of: disability, abuse, mental health, eating disorders, gender, and sexuality. Yet these are deftly woven into each character’s backstory, and balances out Jordan’s single-minded pursuit of revenge.

So if, like me, you come into this looking for a Malaysian setting, you’ll be sorely disappointed—Burima has a generic Southeast Asian vibe and most of the story is set on the Island, anyway. But if Malaysia were a vibe, a mindset you struggle with, there’s much for anyone living as a minority to identify with. This is a story of two sisters and their terrible fear of being Othered. It’s a story of that need to be chosen, and of fighting for the right to stay. It’s that lump in your throat of not knowing when the land (and people) you love will turn on you and tell you to leave again, and that fire that says this is my home, I’m not going.

And it’s a fairy tale, as bittersweet as it ends, that claims triumphantly that you can find your own way to belong.

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Anna Tan grew up in Malaysia, the country that is not Singapore. She writes fantasy novels, puts together anthologies, and helps people publish books, which includes yelling at HTML for epub reasons. She also wrangles writers and deadlines for the Malaysian Writers Society. Anna can be found tweeting as @natzers, posting tea pictures on Instagram as @annatsp, and at annatsp.com.

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