A CEBUANO author based in Sydney, Australia will be in Cebu late December to promote her new book entitled “The Corner of Irrelevance.”
Tess Neis first book, “My Own Winter Sun” was released in 2012 and was launched in SM City Cebu.
Both books are available at amazon.com, barnes&noble.com and xlibris.com.
The Corner of Irrelevance chronicles the day to day struggle of an Asian woman (particularly Filipina) to fit into a seemingly unwelcoming foreign world.
All throughout the story, the protagonist remains unnamed, which speaks about the true state of her self-worth.
The book depicts nuances of big dreams and little successes, a life of forever trying and never achieving. It also tells a husband’s unconditional love, a mother’s illusions of grandeur, and friendships gone sour. It also provides readers a peek into two clashing cultures – one parochial but seemingly rich in flavor and color, and another that is more open and liberating but viewed as largely pedestrian.
The book, written simply without any pretension or promise of grand literary merits, is entertaining.
It is presented as a memoir with subtle hints of rhetorical conjectures on various current issues in the guise of personal estimations.
The book is quite funny not only because of the characters, but rather of the situations the characters find themselves in. Humor, unwittingly vulgar sometimes, becomes an intrinsic part of the story. The author injects a sense of lightness in between chapters of sporadic melancholy, which is how life in general is perhaps meant to be for the protagonist.