‘Finding a home in the world’
Heaven Has Eyes: Stories
by Philip Holden
New York: Gaudy Boy, 2026
$26.00 / 978958652220
Reviewed by Candace Fertile
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First published by Epigram Books in 2016, Philip Holden’s Heaven Has Eyes has been reissued with changes and four new stories (one of which BCR excerpted in February). The concerns are multiple but mainly have to do with lives within the cultural context of Singapore and how place may or may not become home.
Holden’s own life spans different countries: the United States, England, China, Singapore, and Canada (with graduate degrees from UBC), and his stories reflect his varied experiences, first as a literature instructor at the post-secondary level for decades and then as a student of mental health practices. Most of his time was spent in Singapore. As he says in the Preface, “The stories here are about finding a home in the world, even as they are also about belonging in difference.”
Holden (Autobiography and Decolonization: Modernity, Masculinity, and the Nation-State) provides a “Dramatis Personae” at the beginning to educate readers on four key players in Singapore politics, plus a brief note on Pierre Trudeau. Some of the stories are more firmly anchored in the real political world. The Trudeau story, “When Pierre Met Harry,” imagines a meeting between Trudeau and Harry, a Malayan from Singapore, at a lecture given by economics professor Harold Laski in London.
Bits of Laski’s lecture are included along with a letter Harry finds in Trudeau’s briefcase (which he has forgotten) and which sets up another meeting, this time between Trudeau and a woman who criticizes his way of loving. Holden’s stories tend to weave in the personal and the political, or at least relationships between individuals and their place in the larger world. The prevailing tone is serious and somewhat sad.
The kinds of relationships explored are what you would expect: relationships between spouses from different countries/homes, between friends, between parent and child. And then there is the unexpected. One of the most disturbing stories, “Two Among Many,” is a third person narrative about a retired Singaporean man still called upon by the government to organize executions and a young woman who has been caught running drugs in order to help her brother get out of debt.
Holden’s interest in mental health stems from his own challenges with mental health, and in “Letters from London,” a psychologist in London corresponds in the 1990s with Raja, who lives in Singapore, after decades of no contact. Charly wants to help Raja but cannot be his psychologist. He does agree to “listen” to Raja, in mirror of his work: “What I often do in my work is simply to bear witness to the experiences of the people who sit in front of me, to listen and then to reflect back what I have heard, so that they see themselves from the outside, in a new light.” Charly himself benefited as young man by seeing a psychiatrist, “not pathologizing but accepting” of his and his partner’s homosexuality. What a gift. Raja has climbed the ranks in Singapore politics, and Charly criticizes some of his decisions. But the reason for the correspondence is Raja’s haunting dreams and his declining mental ability.
In addition to the twelve stories in sections titled Home, Away, and In Transit, a Coda with a story titled “Questions for a National Therapy Session, 9 August 2030” concludes the book. The point of view is second person, with the voice of a therapist in Singapore asking the questions of someone on their 65th birthday. As Singapore became an independent country in 1965, it quickly becomes clear that the patient is the country. Questions about a traumatic birth, colonialism, capitalism, inequality, socialism, language, memory, and happiness follow. It’s a remarkable piece and certainly not applicable only to Singapore.
The title story, “Heaven Has Eyes,” refers to a popular television serial in Singapore in which a family dynasty is explored. It sounds like any melodramatic serial about power. Against the descriptions of the show lies the action in the real world: an election. After watching an episode of the series, Zi Qiang and his wife Adelyn leave her parents’ house to go to an opposition rally. Zi Qiang has been reading about democracy (and how it can be manipulated). As it happens while Singapore is nominally a multi-party democracy, in reality there is one party that has governed throughout the country’s existence. The underlying concern is about how much has been abandoned or sold out to enable Singapore to become an economic powerhouse.
Holden’s experience has given him insight into many important issues about identity and place. Overall, the stories are complicated and dense. They are underpinned by psychological and philosophical considerations, and would advise readers to learn a little bit about Singapore’s history.
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Candace Fertile has a PhD in English literature from the University of Alberta. She teaches English at Camosun College in Victoria, writes book reviews for several Canadian publications, and is on the editorial board of Room Magazine. [Editor’s note: Candace has reviewed recent books by Jenn Ashton, Marina Sonkina, Terence Young, Bill Gaston, Heather Ramsay, Leslie Shimitakahara, Hannah Calder, M.V. Feehan, S.C. Lalli, Rebecca Godfrey with Leslie Jamison, Ian and Will Ferguson, Shashi Bhat, Carleigh Baker, and Kathryn Mockler for BCR.]
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The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors: Trevor Marc Hughes (nonfiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and poetry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an online book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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