Now You See Us

Now You See Us (2023) is the newest novel written by Balli Kaur Jaswal (Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters) and is just as good as the others of hers that I’ve read, in a completely different way. Set in Singapore, Jaswal tells the story of a murder through the eyes of three Filipina domestic workers–Cora, Donita, and Angel–who work for Singapore’s wealthy.

One of their own, Flordeliza, has been arrested for murdering her female employer. Although they don’t know Flor well, they each know that they could have been her, imprisoned for a crime that they did not commit.

Cora has come back to Singapore after she thought she had retired back in the Phillipines, and she is lucky to be hired by a widow who doesn’t seem to need her to do very much but provide companionship. Donita is on her first job, and has the bad luck to be placed with Mrs. Fann, a very religious and demanding woman whose household still bears the ghost of a missing son. Angel cares for her elderly employer after a stroke, but her position feels precarious because his son has brought in a nurse to assist.

Told through texts, news stories, and traditional narrative, Jaswal deftly illuminates the loneliness of going to another country to work in someone else’s home; how social media has impacted the employer-employee relationship; how queer and trans people are accepted (or not) in Singapore in both the wealthy and working classes; and the sheer cruelty that can arise when an employer has such great power over a domestic worker. Jaswal has always had an eye for socially relevant stories, and Now You See Us is no exception. I couldn’t stop reading and wanted to find out the fate of each of these hardworking women.

It is nearly free of anti-fat bias, although there was one mention of a minor character wanting to lose weight for her wedding. I will consider it weight-neutral. Also, I want to give a warning that one of the employer characters withholds food from a worker, although it did not appear to be for weight-related reasons, just pure stinginess and cruelty.