Simone Lazaroo: In my experience it is always several events that prompts the writing. In this case the events take place over several years. One of those events was that, in researching my previous book, I spoke to an aunty of mine in Singapore when I was researching my first book, and she described a woman she knew who'd been forced into prostitution during Japanese occupation. I later read that the Singapore was the worst in relation to these women. Stories of such women are not very widely known, and also I was aware that the post WW2 attitudes to Asians that had been evident in Australia during the era in which I was writing hadn't disappeared altogether, so I began research into post war attitudes and policy. Just hearing for example that state troops took in the laundries of wealthy Australians, despite the implementation of the White Australia policy post WW2 was part of my inspiration. I guess also I'm not immune to longing either on a personal level. All those sort of things formed the basis for the novel.
Maggie Ball: What kind of research did you do for the book?
Simone Lazaroo: I had been to Singapore about 3 times in the 10 years preceding the writing of the book, but once I started writing I relied on those pre-visits that I'd made recently. I had actually taught about 200 or so kilometres east of Broome and I used to troop into Broome a fair bit, so I was pretty familiar with the landscape.
Maggie Ball: You have a unique narrative style in the book, of moving back and forth between first and third person. Tell me why you chose to write this way.
Simone Lazaroo: I was hoping to reflect the young Eurasian woman's attempts to make herself strong again through language, and to structure events from her personal history that she had no control of at the time. I was hoping to reflect that a little, and to reflect her attempts to make herself strong after loss through language - her struggle to relieve, make sense of, and gain distance from the emotionally intense events in Australia. Similarly, that she comes to use photography to relieve loss. She is someone looking back towards a geography, but also wanting to re-enter the actual experience. The movement into first person is a means of re-entering and back to third person to create the distance.
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