Often, it is real experiences that make the best stories. Just ask Daryl Kho, author of Mist-Bound: How To Glue Back Grandpa.
The Grandpa in this book is based on Kho’s father who passed away in 2018 after living with dementia for almost a decade. The girl in the book who embarks on a quest to find her Grandpa’s missing memory, is inspired by his daughter Alexis.
And the other characters here, from rock trolls to horses made out of smoke, are drawn from stories Kho grew up with, along with a hefty dose of imagination and fantasy.
Published by Penguin Books SEA, Mist-Bound – Kho’s debut novel – follows the adventures of Alexis as she embarks on a search for ingredients to make Memory Glue. Her Grandpa’s memories have been shattered and she needs to brew this concoction to cure him.
But the ingredients are not your standard supermarket fare.
Where in the world does one obtain sweat droplets from a sea siren, hair from a dream-eater’s snout or tears from a spell caster’s eyes? An adventure of a lifetime awaits her, but tick tock, time is running out.
If Alexis doesn’t gather all the ingredients by Spring, her Grandpa’s memories will be gone for good.
“The fact that this book is deeply personal made it difficult at times to continue working on it, especially when my dad began to deteriorate. I was writing the story for him, to read to him, but he was no longer able to understand it. Thoughts like, ‘What’s the point?’ dogged me so I stopped writing for a long time,” says Kho, 42.
When his dad developed vascular dementia after his second stroke, this marked the start of a challenging period for the family. But during this tough time, there was something to look forward to: the birth of Kho’s daughter Alexis.
“It felt like a long, dark winter, and the only thing that we had to look forward to at that time was Alexis’ impending arrival. Even my dad’s condition started to improve steadily as we got closer to the birth of his only grandchild.
“She was our family’s beacon of hope. And so her Chinese name was chosen to reflect that. She was named Rui Qing, which means the ‘first flower bud of spring’, as she heralded the end of our winter,” he says.
Alexis, who turns 12 this year, never knew her grandpa the way Kho did.
Mist-Bound is Kho’s way of letting his daughter “meet” her grandpa before he was lost to the mists within his mind.
“This book is a tribute to my Pa. It is a salute to my Ma (a finance professional who took on the role of primary – and often, only – caregiver). It is also for my daughter to have an adventure with her grandma, whom she seldom sees due to distance, to both save grandpa together.
“The story was inspired by them, written for them (to be read to them) and written about them, since they are the key characters in the story. Mist-Bound by no means is a sad story. On the contrary, it is a heartwarming story of hope, of love and of family,” he explains.
Mist-Bound is a personal project in more ways than one.
Kho was a prolific creator in his student days, writing songs, poems, plays, skits and even a kung fu musical when he was in university. But it all stopped once he entered the rat race. He even stopped reading for pleasure.
“I just read business articles and professional skills books. And tonnes of email. After nearly 20 years of not making anything, I guess I gradually forgot what it was like to create art. And whenever I would remember, I would fear that I had forgotten how to. But this book changed it all,” he says.
The idea for this story first hit Kho during the Christmas holidays in 2014 and he completed his first draft within a few months. But little did he realise just how long a journey from first draft to a published book can be.
“It is a long, bumpy and winding road, littered with pages of discarded chapters, and potholed by a hundred rounds of edits and rewrites. Being a first-time writer, I initially only wrote whenever inspiration struck. After that first burst, I got stuck in slow-crawl mode for years.
“With a regional job that involved significant travel, and having a young family to juggle, it was just not a sustainable strategy to rely on inspiration or ‘the mood’ to hit. Months could go by without inspiration striking. It was the writing equivalent of swimming in mud, and it was frustrating,” he says.
When Kho’s dad passed away in September 2018, he thought this was the point where he would throw in the towel. But the opposite happened.
“Grief fed the fire that drove me to finish it at last, for him. I wrote like a madman on a mission after that.
“What kept me going was the idea that with every new person or child that read this story, with every reader who joined the heroine Alexis on her quest, brought another chance for Grandpa to be saved – over, and over, and over again,” he shares.
Power of imagination
Growing up with books from Hans Christian Andersen, Enid Blyton and C.S Lewis, as well as fairy tale and folk anthologies, Kho draws from a rich and diverse landscape.
For instance, the Kayon Tree in his book is his ode to Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree. Oceanfall, the giant waterfall that marks the end of the world of Mist, is inspired by the Niagara Falls, which was near his boarding school in Canada.
Other influences include movies like The NeverEnding Story, Coco, Spirited Away, Song Of The Sea, Kubo And The Two Strings, and books like Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist and Salman Rushdie’s Haroun And The Sea Of Stories.
“I also wanted to write a story that my daughter would enjoy, which at that time were fairy tales. Unfortunately, she doesn’t like fairies and magic anymore. Maybe because they stopped paying her for her teeth!” he says.
For most of the way, his daughter was his biggest fan and cheerleader. She even designed a Roblox game based on his story.
“Once I made the firm decision to finish the book, she came up with a terrific way to motivate me. For every week that I did not finish a chapter, I would have to pay her S$5 (RM16). But because I really didn’t want to pay her, I kept zooming through chapters. Especially when her price grew to S$10 (RM32).
“However, she went through a growth spurt last year and also started reading The Hunger Games series. Her book tastes changed abruptly thereafter. Suddenly my book was ‘nice, but no longer her type’. Looks like Book 2 will have to be set in a dystopian world and involve murder, death and lots of blood. It is all your fault, (Hunger Games’ author) Suzanne Collins!” he jokes.
Born and raised in the Klang Valley, Kho is now based in Singapore where he works in the regional TV industry.
He talks about how his Mist-Bound project became his refuge, one that saw him through his dad’s condition and passing, and through rough career patches.
“I guess for me, depression is a good inspiration and tears make good ink. In a recent interview I was asked which was my favourite part of the book. I said it was where I typed ‘The End’. I was half-joking, but it definitely was one of the highlights of my life. All those years of doubt, disappointment and near-surrender, coming to a full-stop after those two words,” he says.
This being his debut book, Kho has newfound awe and respect for authors – and some doubts about their sanity!
“Book writing is super hard work. It is like running a marathon, or sticking to a diet. You can’t just rely on muses or mood for motivation. It requires discipline and routine,” he says.
Family matters
Mist-Bound is supported by Dementia Singapore and Touch Community Services in Singapore.
Closer to home, Kho is partnering with the Alzheimer’s Disease Foundation Malaysia (ADFM). His dad attended their daycare centre, and Kho sees it as a way of giving back. Just recently, he participated in its dementia caregiver sharing session.
“There is a quote I love, by Malian writer Amadou Hampate Ba: ‘When an old person dies, a library burns to the ground.’ Aside from the regret that my daughter never got to hear my dad tell her his life stories, I too have my own regrets for not getting to know my own grandparents better,” he says.
Kho describes our elders as “living libraries”, filled with a lifetime of experiences, stories and wisdom. Much like how we borrow books from the library, through Mist-Bound, he wants to remind readers and convey the urgency for them to check out the stories from the living libraries in our homes – our grandparents and elders within our families – before it is too late.
“Along those same lines, when a grandparent suffers from dementia, the library is essentially on fire. And those shelves are burning down. That is why my story centres around a heroine who is racing against time to save her grandfather’s memories, and with it, the source of all the many stories and folktales that she has come to love,” he says.
Mist-Bound can be read by children, but Kho prefers to call this book a “family novel”, in much the same way Disney or Pixar movies are family movies.
When people ask him for the ideal reader age for his book, he always answers that it is for ages eight to 800.
“They always think I am joking, but I am not. This is a story about family, inspired by a family, to be read as a family. This is a book for children, their grandparents, and the people in between. Ultimately the key message of my book is that despite all the various funky magical ingredients that constitute Memory Glue, it is really the bonds of family that are the most important ingredient. This is the real glue. It is family that glues us together,” he says.
Aside from its focus on dementia and family bonds, Mist-Bound is also a celebration of stories and storytelling.
“It is peppered with folktales, fables and magical creatures predominantly from Asia. If young readers can come away with newfound appreciation for their grandparents, appreciation for the beauty and power of stories, and a curiosity to seek out more from their own backyards (Asia) and from within their own homes (the libraries within their grandparents’ memories), then I would have done Alexis’ Grandpa proud,” he concludes.
More information here.
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