[close] One man's adventure tale that is comic, tragic, outrageous and heart-warming, "The Karaoke World of Cortous Haire" stretches from Singapore at the time of the turbulent '97 Asian economic crisis to Thailand and Laos at the uncertainty of the new millennium. Possessing no job and very little money, university graduate Cortous Haire lands in Singapore in early 1997 and finds employment as a karaoke video marketing executive with a local firm. When his boss suggests that they need to "find a star and make her big in Laos", Cortous's story becomes a series of experiences and obsessions, mysteries and calamities that eventually lead him to deeper inquiries about life and how to live it. The world's first novel about karaoke or a karaoke novel about the world's firsts? With originality and purpose, "The Karaoke World of Cortous Haire" calls out to all generations who have left home in order to seek something that, at the time, they never thought they'd ever find. [close]