The Story Game

In the humid dark of a eucalyptus-scented room, a woman named Hui lies on a mattress telling stories about herself to her listener, a little girl. She talks about her identity as the child of an immigrant, her feelings about being in a mixed-race marriage, and her opinions on mental health. As her stories progress, it becomes clear that a volatile secret lurks beneath their surface. There are events in Hui’s past that have great significance for who she has become, but that have gone missing from her memory. What is it, exactly, that is haunting Hui? Who is the little girl she talks to? And who is Hui herself? As the conversation continues, what unfolds is an unexpected journey through layers of story toward truth and recovered identity; a memoir that reenacts, in a tautly novelistic fashion, the process of healing Hui moved through to recover memories lost to complex PTSD and reconstruct her sense of self. This work is a testament to selfhood and sisterhood, a genre-shattering tribute to the power of imagination, and a unique piece of art. It explores how storytelling can be built out of erasure and silence, and how it is also rooted in a relentless belief in transformation. The narrative questions how accurately we can remember the past while we are still processing it and delves into themes of disembodiment, healing, and identity. The book offers a profound reflection on the process of confronting personal history and the stories we tell ourselves to survive.