Every few
years I get this urge to rewrite the 17 stories from Lovers and Strangers
Revisited. No doubt that seems
silly and a waste of time for most writers since the book has already been
published. Had I not done so, it wouldn't been published a second or a third time! Originally published in Singapore as Lovers and Strangers (Heinemann Asia,1993, Writing in Asia
Series), I revisited the stories in 2005 when a Malaysian lecturer requested to
use the collection for a course on Malaysia and Singapore literature. The book—after consulting with an editor and
going back to the original inspiration for each story, visiting many of the
original settings and overhauling the stories, adding new scenes,
back-stories, and endings—was republished as Lovers and Strangers Revisited
(Silverfish Books).
In 2008, a third revised version with two additional stories was published by MPH, which I wrote about in a blog about publishing in Malaysia and Singapore, that later won the 2009 Popular-The Star Reader’s Choice Awards and was translated into French. To complement the MPH edition, I wrote a blog series, The Story Behind the Story, about the development and the significant changes of each story that led to their various magazine/literary journal publications—often used as writing/teaching aids in schools, colleges, and universities. The main character from the story “Neighbors” was featured by an expat teacher in the New Straits Times, “Are You Mrs. Koh?”
So why revise the stories again? I’ve always felt that Lovers and Strangers Revisited, based on its publishing track record, deserves a wider audience both inside and outside of Malaysia/Singapore. For example, the collection is still available in French by Editions GOPE as Trois autres Malaisie. In fact, the publisher will be exhibiting the collection along with his other Malaysian titles at a French book fair in Kuala Lumpur on 24 March 2024, which should translate into more sales!.
So far, thanks to rewriting those published stories, the individual stories have been published 82 times in 12 countries (11 stories in USA and UK); taught in Malaysian secondary school literature for six years (“Neighbors”), as well as in Canada and USA (Ohio University); and several stories have been taught for years in various Malaysian universities and private colleges. Film students at Ohio University found the original collection in their library, came to Malaysia, and filmed, “Home for Hari Raya.”
Maybe because of this persistent belief that these stories (individually and as a collection) are still relevant—they are still being taught in Malaysia as of May 2023 and are still being published in the USA (“The Stare” appeared in Thema, Spring 2021). As I began editing again (clarifying details, cutting needless words or phrases, tightening the writing), I could see significant improvements in each story.
Also, the process feels like a trip down memory lane, both as a writer and as an expatriate living in Malaysia. “Mat Salleh,” for example, was my first published story, a nonfiction short story, 28 January 1986 (New Straits Times) and my first published story in the UK (My Weekly). "Teh-O in K.L." was my first published short story is USA (Aim). The other stories, all published but one, are all loosely based on my early experiences or on my observations of kampong and modern-day life in Malaysia. Not all the memories are good—a failed marriage for me (“Dark Blue Threads”) and a neighbor committing suicide (“Neighbors”); nevertheless, these stories are my Malaysian roots, so to speak, having lived in Penang as an expatriate for twenty-one years and taught creative writing at USM for ten years, before moving to Sarawak to grow new roots.
The real payoff, of course, is that these revised stories now have a chance for future publications in the US or UK or Australia or elsewhere—the main reason I do it. Or the collection, fingers crossed, is republished to a wider audience. Or the play that I added as a bonus, “One Drink Too Many,” a comedy adapted from the short story, “Neighbors,” is produced in Malaysia or Singapore. Preferably, all three!
What helps me to keep the faith in Lovers and Strangers Revisited (and the individual stories) is rereading the MPH back-of-the-book reviews and other review snippets that I include while marketing the collection to agents and other publishers:
MPH Publisher’s synopsis
and reviews from the back of the book:
In this collection of 17 stories, Robert Raymer portrays
the traditional in modernity, the unexpected in relationships both familiar and
strange, the recurring theme of race even as contemporary Malaysia finds ways
to understand its multicultural milieu.
In the title story, a selfish writer gets more than he
bargained for when two former lovers haunt him in more ways than one. In another
story, a man's loneliness turns into obsession when he shares a taxi ride with
a Malay woman. A Clark Gable lookalike is a barrister wannabe with a shocking
secret and gossipy neighbours reveal more about themselves than the man who
commits suicide. Elsewhere, expats cross the border to Had Yai to experience a
good bargain in the Thai flesh trade before going home to their wives in
America.
In this republished edition of Lovers and Strangers
Revisited, Raymer's snapshots of scenes from various walks of life provide
an insider-outsider view on love, family and culture, and urges a second look
at ourselves in the mirror of self-awareness.
Praise for Lovers and Strangers Revisited
'Raymer not only writes from his own viewpoint as a foreigner
and observer, but also delves into the minds of desperate Malay woman, a young
Indian girl, an adulterous Chinese couple, and an old Chinese man who survived
the Japanese occupation... He has an uncanny ability to hold a mirror up to the
people of his adopted country, not as a foreigner but as one of us. His
stories are full of personalities that you know, you work with them, or live
next door to them, or eavesdrop on them at the kopi tiam.' The Borneo
Post
'This account ("On Fridays") of a crammed ride
with strangers in a taxi may well stand as a metaphor of Raymer's own
experience of living among Malaysians... He imbues each of the characters in
his stories with a realistic, genuinely believable voice even as he tempers it
with the valuable perspective of an observer.' New Straits Times
'Raymer gives a lushly and rich and multi-layered rendition of the Malaysian way of life as colored and influenced by his own experiences from his twenty years as an expat here... These stories are some of the few authentic portrayals of the inner workings and inner plays of the average Malaysian's life in all of its robustness and unique cultural settings.' The Expat
A little ego boost for sure, something all writers need now and then. Also, it’s good to touch base, like stretching before exercising. Awfully glad I rewrote those stories. Now that 2023 is over (having rewritten eight books—six novels and two collections of stories—in two years), I’m ready to embark on new writing projects for 2024 and beyond...
—Borneo Expat
Writer
Chuah Guat Eng, author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change.
