Memoir
I’ve wanted to write a book since 2017, but only got the time to do so since I was retrenched in Jan 2024 (hurray!). My memoir, Marks of My Father, is a coming-of-age story about the marks I inherited, the ones I inflicted, and the imprints of God which reshaped me anew.
I’m hoping that an agent and publisher might pick it up, but if that doesn’t work out, I’ll self-publish to a smaller audience.
Here’s a blurb that might pique your interest :
How do the marks we inherit shape us, and can we rewrite the narratives they etch onto our souls?
As a child, Barry cherished moments with his father—meals at his favorite Hokkien restaurant and nights reliving the Bee Gees concerts on repeat. But his father’s absence turned treasured memories into bitter ones, and by his teenage years, the sound of his footsteps brought unease, then dread.
Adolescence deepened his struggles—seething bitterness towards his father and the consuming shame of sexual lust. Trapped in the suffocating despair of mandatory military service, Barry turned to God, desperate for a way out. As the cracks in his spirit laid bare what he could no longer deny, he discovered another set of marks—gentler, redemptive ones that lined his path, quietly set in place by his heavenly father.
A measure of acceptance and reconciliation followed. But beneath the ordinary rhythms of life lay buried fragments of the past—family narratives tucked into the shadows of history, waiting to be unearthed. These realizations would rip through his beliefs and reshape his understanding of love, forgiveness, and what it truly means to know someone—truths he would uncover only when it was far too late.
Profound and haunting, Marks of My Father is a reckoning of the marks we inherit, the ones we leave behind, and the divine imprint that can make us whole.