Gold by the Inch : A Novel

Author: Mukherjee, Bharati, Chua, Lawrence

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Published on 13 September 1999 by Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press in the United States.

Paperback / softback | 224 pages, Illustrations, unspecified
205 x 126 x 16 | 260g

Called 'striking' by The New York Times Book Review, Gold by the Inch is the story of a young New Yorker of Asian descent who has returned to the country of his birth following a disastrous relationship and his father's death. In a Bangkok drunk on the nation's financial miracle - and high on an assortment of other things - the narrator meets Thong, a young, beautiful male hustler who works at a nightclub. As his romantic obsession with Thong grows, the narrator tries to convince himself that it transcends its commercial nature, but he is quickly forced into a hard look at the connections between desire and exploitation, personal and national identity. Lawrence Chua vividly combines Southeast Asia's troubled history with evocations of its modern face - its polyglot culture, its colonial past, the cool futurism of its skyscrapers and its sex industry. Written in hard-bitten, dazzling prose, Gold by the Inch is a stunning debut.