Book Review | Someone Is Coming by T.A. Morton

Philip Goundry is 93 and living in a care home in England. A young researcher has come to learn about his past life in a Malayan rubber plantation for the Singapore archives. Philip is torn between sharing the troubling events of his childhood or staying silent. But the truth has a way of winning in the end.

Memories come thick and heavy like the rains that fall in the jungle. Dense droplets wash the leaves and soak into the ground, cleansing the acrid smell of rubber, cleansing the jungle of its sins. I hear my mother’s voice. No more secrets, Philip, I promise. 

Someone Is Coming is one of my favourites of the year so far. Haunting, melancholic, and mesmerising, the story revolves around an unreliable narrator reluctantly remembering a decades-old mystery. I read this in one sitting because I was dying to know what happened.

When an interviewer visits Philip to get information for the Singapore archives, Philip is initially distrustful. But his dreams begin to take him back to the past. Voices of his long-gone family members reverberate in his mind. He realises that there are gaps in his memories, and talking about them is the only way for him to remember what he went through. Where was his mother? What happened to his brother? What of his housekeeper, who frequently gave warnings for Philip? And why does he keep seeing visions of a tiger?

The book touches on racism, crime, and superstitions, where Malayan folklore is woven into history. While I felt sorry for Philip as a young boy, his past in Malaya (now Malaysia) is undeniably tied to the horrors of colonialism. There is a difference in the way his family was treated compared to the local people. The mystery of what happened during his stint in the country is satisfyingly solved. The phrase “Someone is coming” is repeated throughout the book until its true chilling origin is revealed. The impact lingers long after the last page is turned.

Someone Is Coming is a tragic tale of memories and ghosts of the past. Highly recommended!

About the author: T.A. Morton

Photo by Niket Gaswani