ANZ LitLovers LitBlog

Reading this novel gave me a lesson in reading between the lines of a review.  At the Asian Review of Books, where I encountered an enticing review by Susan Blumberg-Kason of Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s Dust Child (see my review), there was also a review of a book on a similar theme of bi-racial children fathered by American soldiers: Skull Water by Heinz Insu Fenkl.  Both reviews are basically summaries, but it concludes with:

Skull Water takes more of a nostalgic look at an unusual childhood, while Dust Child shows how trauma can persist over decades until people seek to find any semblance of closure, if possible.

Well, yes, it certainly was an ‘unusual’ childhood.  Much of Skull Water is very unpleasant indeed.

The main character Insu has the same name as the author so presumably we are meant to infer that much of this coming-of-age story is autobiographical.  The story, presented in two time frames — 1950 during the hot war, and 1975 in the Cold War aftermath — is about the bi-racial adolescent son of an American soldier and his Korean wife, called Mahmi in the novel.  Insu goes on a quest to help Big Uncle recover from a festering foot injury which dates from his backstory in the 1950s.  There is a Korean legend that drinking water from a decomposed skull will cure diseases, and together with other bi-racial adolescents, he sets out to desecrate the grave of an old man who has recently died…

That scene alone is unpleasant enough, but the narrative is punctuated by other scenes of adolescent hooliganism, foul-mouthed conversations, a cock-fight and a dog-fight.  (I skipped that chapter entirely).  These young people in their mid-teens are mostly alienated from the local culture and hang around on the edges of the military base, smoking dope and drinking alcohol in clubs and bars, and engaging at some risk in black marketeering (as their Korean parents do, at considerable risk from their much nastier contacts).  Two of these young people provide sexual favours to the soldiers: Patsy is a cynical young prostitute intent on getting a ticket to America as a wife, while Paulie is luckier in that his paramour has good intentions, at least, of continuing the relationship in the US.

Insu, who is portrayed as more sensitive than the others, eavesdrops on conversations at home and despite his western education from a previous posting in Germany, has an ambivalent attitude towards superstition.  So he believes the legend about skull water, and he also believes to some extent in ghosts.

Given the explicitly crude language in so much of this book, perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was, by the use of the N-word to describe African-American soldiers.  I suppose it was authentic, in context, and intended to acknowledge the racism of the US military in that era, but still, it is offensive.

I finished the book unclear about whether the nostalgic tone meant that the author thought the events portrayed were ok — or forgiveable, at least, because the characters were young; or that they were intended to show the harmful effects of young people growing up in the bizarre environment of a military camp; or that bi-racial kids are vulnerable to acting out because they are rejected by others.  The occasional dash of Buddhist philosophy didn’t suggest to me that the protagonist had really matured enough to reflect on his actions and reconsider his behaviour.

Given that there must have been relationships between locals and Australian soldiers participating in military ventures (from the Boer War onwards)  — there’s an Australian version of these stories about bi-racial children of soldiers waiting to be told.  I’d want it to be authentic, but I’d want it to be better than this one.

I consider myself lucky that the Kindle edition available to me in Australia was priced at $47.02.  I might have bought it if the price had not been so outrageous.  Instead I located a digital copy at the Port Phillip Library, and was able to read it using a Library App called Libby. (I didn’t actually use the App because I am never going to read a book on my phone, but I was able to read it on the large screen of my desktop even though it’s a pain to read a whole book sitting at my desk.)

Author: Heinz Insu Fenkl
Title: Skull Water
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau, 2023
Cover design: Strick & Williams, illustration by Carson Ellis
ASIN: B09RSRH4HM, digital edition, read using Libby.
Source: Port Phillip Library,