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Borrowed Time
Hong Kong, 1997. A city in flux....... For 150 years it has been a magnet for those with nothing to lose. They have come to escape the purges in China, the war in Vietnam, the poverty in the Philippines. Or to get away from dead-end jobs and dead-end lives in Britain, Europe, America and Australia........ As the clock ticks down on the handover from British to Chinese rule, Hong Kong is the most exciting place on earth. It is a place where you can reinvent yourself and start all over again. To many looking for a new life, it is a place where you can have it all...... But what happens if you can’t? For one man, and those he loves, the answer is devastating.
227 pages, Paperback
Published November 11, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
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April 3, 2019If you enjoy classic Alfred Hitchcock films, and sharply sketched Somerset Maugham stories—of the type that look deep into the psyche of otherwise normal people who, when placed under continuous pressure, can suddenly explode into shocking results—you’ll certainly enjoy Borrowed Time, a tautly -written, yet slow-burning novel.
The location is the former British colony of Hong Kong, set just before the city’s historic return to China in 1997. Everyone in the famous sea port is jittery about what the future might hold for them
First time British author Steve Langley, himself an expat journalist who lived in the city before and during the Handover, focuses on a group of rather pampered expats, Westerners, mainly British. Some long married, others stridently single. But they all share one condition – they are people adrift in life. Having moved from one island to another, they're now far at sea.
Though still emotionally attached to England, they’ve traded their “sedentary, predictable” lives there for the promise of higher paying jobs, company paid luxe apartments and semi-tropical sunshine in mid-winter.
But once well out of their comfort zones, romantic couples begin to bitch at each other. Middle-aged married men cheat when they can. Wives become psychological “dollar widows” as their husbands spend endless hours chasing corner offices and corporate bonuses. And once dullard social-drinking school teachers become seriously angry drunkards.
The heaving city itself—soon no longer to be British and yet never likely to ever be fully Chinese, is hardly in a position to provide any pity. Its own people are “dislocated, alienated, lost, under threat and lashing out”. The result is our observed expats begin to float away from reality, coming to believe that nothing is real or permanent.
Mr. Langley’s Borrowed Time is a coolly-written cautionary tale of what can happen when enough pressure is applied to ordinary people who have already been questioning their place in the universe. And the final shocking price to pay is far more than a brief Far East fling, or a damaged liver, or a black-eye from a bar fight.
The location is the former British colony of Hong Kong, set just before the city’s historic return to China in 1997. Everyone in the famous sea port is jittery about what the future might hold for them
First time British author Steve Langley, himself an expat journalist who lived in the city before and during the Handover, focuses on a group of rather pampered expats, Westerners, mainly British. Some long married, others stridently single. But they all share one condition – they are people adrift in life. Having moved from one island to another, they're now far at sea.
Though still emotionally attached to England, they’ve traded their “sedentary, predictable” lives there for the promise of higher paying jobs, company paid luxe apartments and semi-tropical sunshine in mid-winter.
But once well out of their comfort zones, romantic couples begin to bitch at each other. Middle-aged married men cheat when they can. Wives become psychological “dollar widows” as their husbands spend endless hours chasing corner offices and corporate bonuses. And once dullard social-drinking school teachers become seriously angry drunkards.
The heaving city itself—soon no longer to be British and yet never likely to ever be fully Chinese, is hardly in a position to provide any pity. Its own people are “dislocated, alienated, lost, under threat and lashing out”. The result is our observed expats begin to float away from reality, coming to believe that nothing is real or permanent.
Mr. Langley’s Borrowed Time is a coolly-written cautionary tale of what can happen when enough pressure is applied to ordinary people who have already been questioning their place in the universe. And the final shocking price to pay is far more than a brief Far East fling, or a damaged liver, or a black-eye from a bar fight.
March 24, 2019
A very exciting story with an unexpected twist at the end. Is this what expatriate life is like. None of the characters are likeable but you keep reading about them in disbelief. It makes you want to experience a bit of the life even or especially because it is unsavoury. How much is autobiographical i wonder?? Recommended as an exciting, escapist experience . When are you writing your next one ?
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 31, 2018
Best book I've ever read.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews