Thai Girl by Andrew Hicks

Thai Girl a new novel by Andrew Hicks

A romantic and touching story that tells what happens when young travellers meet Thais.

The story is about Ben and Emma and Ben’s affair with a Thai girl, Fon. After leaving university, Emma is reluctantly persuaded to go to Thailand with Ben but cracks in their relationship quickly show. When Emma goes her own way, it is not long before Ben falls head over heels in love with Fon, though she claims to be a traditional girl and is not to be easily won.

Ben meets travellers from many countries and confronts some of the issues affecting a fast-developing country and its people. What is it to be poor and why farmers daughters leave home and sell their bodies in the bars of Bangkok?

As he experiences the raunchy nightlife and parties with his friends, Ben vigorously pursues his passion for Fon, the sparkling Thai girl of his dreams. But she resists his advances, refusing to be distracted by a passing foreigner. Will she weaken and fall for him and can they find a future together? Only in the final pages do the full implications for both of them become clear.

“The author’s powers of observation are remarkable; he writes so well and informatively about Thailand, its culture and the myriad aspects of society here. For that reason alone, it is certainly worth reading.” Big Chilli

“On page seventy Fon appears and takes over the novel and makes it fly… Pretty, vivacious, sassy, coquettish, ambitious and iron willed, Fon fairly leaps off the page, a living, breathing character… Always there is the delightful Fon, lighting up Ben’s life and the novel itself. The highlight of the book is Ben’s trip back to the ancestral village in Buri Ram with Fon. The physical setting and the rhythms of daily life here are beautifully observed.” James Eckhardt, The Nation

“Hicks has done very well in his pen sketch of the Thai psyche of the Isaan girl, who can be both open and closed, loving and stand-offish all at the same time.” Lang Reid, Pattaya Mail

Paperback
TYS Books
Bangkok 2004
296 pages
ISBN 9789749200346