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Black Water Sister by Zen Cho
Jess is a young, Chinese, woman who—unlike her contemporaries—failed to obtain employment after graduating from Harvard. She is engaged in a secret romantic relationship.
Jess’ father loses his job after a prolonged treatment for cancer. Suddenly, her family must leave California for Malaysia. Besides adjusting to the new household dynamics and learning Hokkien, Jess must find a job. Before working with her uncle, Jess visits a garden temple with a shrine under a bodhi tree where life takes a dramatic turn. She embarks on a precarious journey of secrets, murder, and gods.
“Women like the Black Water Sister became gods because their lives were so shitty, their death so hideous, that people prayed to them to avert their vengeance. Because they had died with all that fury left to spend.”
Zen Cho created a story about women discovering themselves in a dangerous world constrained by tenuous rules and rites.
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