When we recall the story of the Vietnamese Boat People we tend to think of refugees who fled their war ravaged homeland and Communism to integrate successfully into many areas of the West.
But not everyone was so fortunate.
Take, for example, the story of Lina Sage and her family who were among 50,000 refugees who settled in Canada when she was barely 12 months old.
Not only had her parents been poor village people who found it difficult to cope with suburban life, but her father was an ex-jailbird who had dabbled in drug trafficking while her mother was accustomed to playing the submissive role in their relationship. He swiftly became a violent drunkard while an uncle who lived with them to help meet their living costs began to sexually abuse Lina when she was aged only six.
So Sage’s memoir, The Last Ten Pounds ** is not about the family’s struggle to integrate into Canadian life but her personal story of coping with the effects of the abuse, an attempted suicide in her mid-teens, a failed marijuana ‘grow op’, then her period as an escort.
Sage now works as a self-styled writer, speaker, producer and entrepreneur - and the creator and founder of ‘Chic Spirituality’, a movement whose adherents live their lives by surrounding themselves with beautiful things.
The title of her book does not relate to money or weight, but to being helped by therapy to slough off the last vestige of the emotional baggage that had encumbered her for so many years.
Like everyone else, I am deeply sorry that Sage suffered so much as a child and young woman, but I am convinced that if even half her story is true then she brought much of the misery upon herself.
Although her tale has a fascinating horror in its deep-down dirty awfulness, I cannot recommend it in its present form as it requires a thorough, professional rewrite.
** The Last Ten Pounds is available on Kindle @ $2.99.
© Natalie Wood (12 October 2016)
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