This is the story of Johnny Lim, textile merchant, petty crook and inventor of the Amazing Toddy Machine, and his marriage to the beautiful Snow Soong. In 1940, with the Japanese about to invade Malaysia, Johnny and Snow embark on their honeymoon to the mysterious Seven Maiden Islands, accompanied by a mercurial Japanese professor and Peter Wormwood, an Englishman adrift. Many years later, Wormwood looks back on this defining journey, while Snow's son goes in search of the truth of his mother and the infamous Chinese man she married. Set against the backdrop of a country in crisis, Tash Aw's scintillating first novel is the story of a haunting episode in the history of a family and a landmark work of fiction.