Fly on the Wall

April 6, 2020
Henry Khoo chronicles his life quandaries in this fresh, idiosyncratic story that meshes prose and graphic novel formats. The 12-year-old Australian resident feels suffocated and sometimes humiliated by his overprotective mother and older sister, and is convinced that his father in Singapore, with whom he shares only perfunctory phone conversations, doesn’t like him. At school, Henry’s best and only friend suddenly adopts a new passel of pals, leaving him alone, resentful, and ready to retaliate. The multistranded plot unfolds in Henry’s notebook, brimming with hyperbolic line drawings that are charged with imagination, emotion, and humor. (He portrays his mother and sister as anthropomorphized helicopters hovering overhead, while a flattened Henry exclaims, “You’ve turned me into a helipad!”) The disgruntled boy makes some uncharacteristically bold, even reckless, moves. He creates the anonymous blog Fly on the Wall (the name reflects his feeling of invisibility), which features mean-spirited cartoons of classmates, and he surreptitiously flies alone to Singapore to speak with his father about some long-percolating questions. As she did in Pie in the Sky, Lai deftly mines the angst and conundrums of life as a dual-cultural adolescent fording the turbulent torrents of peer and family relationships. Ages 8–12. Agent: Jim McCarthy, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.

July 8, 2020
When Henry Khoo isn’t trolling his school as anonymous cartoonist ‘Fly on the Wall’, he is being babied at home by an overprotective family. To correct this, Henry devises a plan: fake an alibi, steal a credit card and fly alone to Singapore. Unfortunately, it’s just not a good plan! Fly on the Wall is an idiosyncratic, highly enjoyable take on the well-trod illustrated diary trope. Henry has a Tristram Shandy-like talent for digression, flitting rapidly between diary, illustration, bad poetry and texts. It’s an initially disorientating chaos that takes a moment to click—but when it does, it makes for exceptionally nimble storytelling. An advantage Fly has over series like 'Wimpy Kid' and 'Dork Diaries' is that Remy Lai is the real deal as a cartoonist. The drawings are beautifully observed, landing joke after joke without fail. What lingers most, however, is the emotional honesty. Henry is often an insufferable jerk, and Lai has a knack for allowing him to articulate his motives to us without understanding them himself. Fly on the Wall is a book that models self-examination, apology and graceful endings to friendships that have run their course. It’s perfect for readers aged 8–12 who enjoyed all of the obvious comparisons. It is also, in many ways, easy to recommend over them. Phil Lesnie is a children’s illustrator and a bookseller at Kinokuniya, Sydney.