Lee Jaylin, a 31-year-old workaholic Advertising Executive, wonders just what the point of it all is when her long-time friend and lover departs to travel the world, leaving her with the less than exhilarating task of promoting ‘designer condoms’. With penetration, humour and roller-coaster momentum, Ovidia Yu subtly weaves an intricate web of hidden relationships with a highly comic series of events, in the process questioning the most cherished assumptions of Singapore’s high-pressure, breakneck-paced lifestyle. Is this really the rat race? Or just a long and lonely mouse marathon?

About the Marshall Cavendish Classics series

This title is being reissued under the new Marshall Cavendish Classics: Literary Fiction series, which seeks to introduce some of the best works of Singapore literature to a new generation of readers. Some have been evergreen titles over the years, others have been unjustly neglected. 

Authors in the series include: Catherine Lim, Claire Tham, Colin Cheong, Michael Chiang, Minfong Ho, Ovidia Yu and Philip Jeyaretnam.

One of Singapore’s most prolific writers, Ovidia Yu has published numerous works of fiction and has had more than 30 of her plays produced on stage. She has won many awards for her literary work, including the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry Singapore Foundation Culture Award (1996), the National Arts Council (NAC) Young Artist Award (1996) and the Singapore Youth Award (1997).