Charles Foran

This is a story about the consequences of having an on-line presence. When 15 year old Xixi Kwok photographs and posts a picture of a woman she believes needs help, she finds herself the target of criminals. This is, in large part, a cautionary tale: Xixi and her parents think she is safe in her room, but she is not only in the physical space of home, but also in cyberspace where her parents can't protect her.

This is also the story of family ties. Mom and Dad aren't getting along; older sister is away at university and Xixi has only her beloved amah (Gloria) to confide in. The only sour note for me is that Xixi doesn't seem like a 15 year old -- she seems much younger to me.

That said, the author has done an amazing job of bringing depth to his characters, and in structuring this book. The middle section consists of text messages, tweets, video transcripts: the reader only experiences Xixi's on-line presence. This shows so vividly how Xixi really has no control over her cyber image. Fascinating.… (mehr)

As a university student in Ireland, Charles Foran tags along with some Irish friends as they visit their relatives in Belfast, the McNallys. Foran develops his own long-lasting relationship with the family, visiting them occasionally over the years and witnessing the Troubles from a very personal perspective. This is his memoir of those times, shifting between the past and the present (at the time of writing, the "present" was the early 1990s). I greatly enjoyed reading about his visits with the family, particularly his accounts of their lively conversations in the sitting room every evening. It was also interesting to observe how their relationship deepened and changed as Foran himself became older and had a family of his own. And as a Canadian like Foran, I nodded along with his descriptions of life in the suburbs of Toronto and how greatly it differed from life in Belfast. Recommended if you are interested in history at the personal level.… (mehr)