Vanishing Point
Out of stock
• Longlisted for the 2013 Frank O'connor International Short Story Award
3,000 people go missing every year in Singapore. Why do they go missing? What do they leave behind?
Felix Cheong’s Vanishing Point is the first work of fiction by a Singapore writer to be inspired by real-life cases of missing persons. These stories do not speculate where these people have gone to but are a creative leap-off to explore the theme of absences and obsessions.
In the story, ‘In the Dark’, a man who is obsessive-compulsive about white cleans his wife - literally - out of his life. In ‘Remember the Wormhole of 2030’, the prime minister of a small island nation abducts her ex-lover to prevent a scandal from exploding. In ‘The 10th Floor’, a crooked accountant has to deal nightly with strangers coming to his flat asking for a floor that doesn’t exist.
These are stories suffused with a sharp sense of the surreal and the satirical, compared by writers like Daren Shiau and Boey Kim Cheng to Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami. Weaving in poetic turns of phrase for which he is known for, Cheong shows us how we often reach the vanishing point in the horizon even if we may not have physically vanished.
Vanishing Point
Slide to see
Paperback
$20.00 SGD
Reviews
“Full of trickery, like the illusionist in You Will Be Out like a Light, the sleights-of-hand echoing Murakami, but distinctly Singaporean and Cheong's. The dark humour, the surreal and macabre touches, the trenchant wit and well-observed details are mesmerising and subtly satirical, subversive of the values of the global city, which should be enthralled and surprised by its images caught in the mirrors of these pages.” - Dr Boey Kim Cheng, Senior lecturer, University of Newcastle, and poet
“At once surprising and moving, these stories capture the lives of those who hover between this world and the next. Vanishing Point is a powerful exploration of the individual encountering his own mortality.” - Dr Nancy Srebro Park, Southern Methodist University
“Cheong's stories are steeped in a kind of mysterious melancholy and Cheong brings them to life with his page-turning prose. As a fascinated reader, I found myself asking, where will Mr. Cheong go next? And usually, I felt myself riveted by the twists and turns that followed. These are stories that will not only keep you reading, they may keep you awake and wondering.” - Dr David Fedo, Author of Carrots and Other Poems
"Ways of loss", a phrase from one of his stories, could be an alternative title to this riveting collection. Felix Cheong's characters, or parts of their bodies or spirits, as they are usually self-conflicted, vanish. The alert, nuanced prose style precariously balances the suspension between appearance and reality. The reader cannot help but read on.” - Dr Robert Yeo, Poet, playwright, novelist and S.E.A. Write Award winner, 2012
Recommended Books
Fiction
Paperback
$24.00 SGD
E-book
$24.00 SGD
catskull
Paperback
$20.00 SGD
E-book
$20.00 SGD
Singa-Pura-Pura: Malay Speculative Fiction from Singapore
Paperback
$19.00 SGD
E-book
$19.00 SGD
After the Inquiry
Paperback
$22.00 SGD
E-book
$22.00 SGD
Heartland (new edition)
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
E-book
$16.00 SGD
How We Live Now: Stories of Daily Living
Paperback
$14.00 SGD
E-book
$14.00 SGD
Potong: To Care/Cut
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
E-book
$18.60 SGD
Shezlez the Self-Proclaimed
Reader
$12.00 SGD
My New Monster Truck
Reader
$6.00 SGD
Big Book
$35.00 SGD
Mango the Cat
Reader
$7.00 SGD
Big Book
$50.00 SGD
Fried Eggs
E-book
$0.00 SGD
Why Our Great Leader was Not So Great and Not Much of a Leader
E-book
$0.00 SGD
The Bonnie, Bonnie Banks of Singapura
E-book
$0.00 SGD
Found Texts of the AAI Anon, Circa 3119: Eight Lyric Essays
E-book
$0.00 SGD
2719
Paperback
$32.71 SGD
E-book
$32.71 SGD
Memorandum
Paperback
$22.00 SGD
E-book
$22.00 SGD
In This Desert, There Were Seeds
Paperback
$25.00 SGD
E-book
$25.00 SGD
Collected Plays Three
Paperback
$14.00 SGD
E-book
$14.00 SGD
Interpreter of Winds
Paperback
$12.00 SGD
E-book
$12.00 SGD
Giving Alms
Paperback
$22.00 SGD
E-book
$22.00 SGD
The Gods Will Hear Us Eventually
Paperback
$16.00 SGD
Hook and Eye: Stories from the Margins
Paperback
$20.00 SGD
The First Five: A New Collection of Southeast Asian Writing
Out of print
Paperback
$15.00 SGD
E-book
$15.00 SGD
Payoh
Paperback
$20.56 SGD
this is how you walk on the moon: an anthology of anti-realist fiction
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
E-book
$18.60 SGD
Dream Storeys
Board Book
$18.30 SGD
Afternoon Tea at Raffles Hotel
Paperback
$10.00 SGD
Belfast
Paperback
$10.00 SGD
The Cuckoo Conundrum
Gift Box Set
$25.00 SGD
The NTU-NAC Writing Residencies Chapbooks (Gift Box Set)
Paperback
$25.00 SGD
3
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
E-book
$18.60 SGD
Blood Collected Stories
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
E-book
$18.60 SGD
These Foolish Things & Other Stories
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
E-book
$18.60 SGD
Cherry Days
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
E-book
$18.60 SGD
First Fires
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
E-book
$18.60 SGD
When a Flower Dies
Paperback
$20.00 SGD
The Adopted: Stories from Angkor
Paperback
$20.00 SGD
E-book
$20.00 SGD
Corridor: 12 Short Stories
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
Lost Nostalgia
Out of stock
Paperback
$9.25 SGD
Afternoon Tea at Raffles Hotel Singapore: A Fun Activity Book
Out of stock
Paperback
$40.00 SGD
Singapore Siu Dai Box Set
Out of stock
Paperback
$13.00 SGD
Singapore Siu Dai 3: The SG Conversation Dabao!
Out of stock
Paperback
$10.00 SGD
Saint
Out of stock
Paperback
$18.60 SGD
A Family Portrait
Out of stock
Out of print
Default Title
$9.90 SGD
Eye/Feel/Write For You
Out of stock
Paperback
$20.00 SGD
The Tessellated Path
Out of stock
Box Set
$206.25 SGD
Interlogue Series Collection (8 Volumes)
Out of stock
Out of print
Paperback
$15.00 SGD
Underground and Other Stories
Out of stock
Default Title
$16.00 SGD
The Story of Ms. Poet
Out of stock
Paperback
$20.00 SGD
The Proper Care of Foxes
Out of stock
Default Title
$14.00 SGD
The Girl Who Made It Snow in Singapore
Out of stock
Out of print
Attunement
Is life hustling you out of tune? As the week roars by, we invite you to a slice of attunement penned lovingly by our authors, friends, and yours truly. Freshly delivered weekly with care. Intimacy guaranteed. Read selected letters below.
Magical, luminous things
Feb 19, 2022
I have flown across an ocean this week. This still sounds surreal to say.
Read more
No negotiation for blood debt
Feb 14, 2022
The Burmese language resistance poetry is deeply embedded in the country’s colonial past. When mo...
Read more
Burning holes in the darkness
Feb 7, 2022
Poets killed in broad daylight, writers tortured and maimed. I wonder if their ghosts watch on fr...
Read more
