The Resemblance

"Riffat travels to Sydney in search of a missing year: the year her father, a Muslim of New Fortress in the west of China, consented to be exiled to Australia, a country out of mind. The rebellion in China was crushed. Riffat's father returned to China, where he became the historian of his vanquished people as if to atone for his abandonment of them in their hour of need. In all his published works, right down to his death, he barely referred to the year in Australia. Armed with her father's journals and a mysterious letter, Riffat follows in his footsteps. It is 2009. Twenty years have passed. The Australia she finds does not resemble the Australia he described. How can a country have changed out of recognition? Was her father so deluded? Or might the answer lie in the past of Australia? or in the Australian present? What was the purpose of the Australian Populations Centre? a flourishing institution in 1989. Damien, Riffat's willing assistant, has never heard of it. She delays meeting Hugues Martin, its former Director. Since her father was a musician who played the tar - she encounters his old friend Dave Carmody, a composer of electronic music, racked by the torments of the avant-garde. Active in Riffat's imagination is a young woman, impetuous and self-willed, who had much to do with her father. Is Lainey still alive, in a suburb of Sydney? What if she were to encounter this woman! Is she in gaol? Is she in Central Queensland, where the daughter's steps lead her? What can she tell of the transformation of Australia? if there was a transformation! Just how lovingly does she remember Riffat's father? The Resemblance is a novel, part naturalism, part science-fiction, with the riddle of music at its heart."--Provided by publisher.