Excerpt from We, the Survivors by Tash Aw, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

At one point the lawyers started asking him questions about my character. Did he ever know me to be impulsive? Had he ever seen violent tendencies in me? Was I someone who felt sorry and regretted bad deeds? At first he answered clearly and simply, without hesitation, just like the serious businessman he'd become. It wasn't a role he was performing, it was who he really was now. Both his English and his Malay had improved, and he used them carefully, considering every word before saying it. But as the questions continued, he began to feel at ease and started speaking more freely, sometimes using expressions you might consider rude. He even told a little story from our teenage years. One time hor, I steal biscuit from the store, I share with him but I steal so much we cannot finish, he say must return, must return, I say no way, poke your lung, but he lagi force me so next day we go give back biscuit. Your mother. Make me lose face! But he say how can steal, she also no money.

'OK, OK, Mr Tan. I think that will do.' When the lawyer said that I laughed. Even in his new life, Keong couldn't resist talking too much. For a few seconds, when he was recounting that incident – which I couldn't recall – I saw the years and the extra weight he'd acquired fall away. I saw the skinny kid with a sharp face and earrings again, the one I'd grown up with and had always thought would end up in jail. We even joked about it when he left KL to find work elsewhere. 'Don't worry about an address,' I'd told him, 'I'll just come looking for you in prison.'

After the lawyer's admonishment he fell silent once more – a husband, a proper father, someone you could trust to hold a family together. That's the image of him that comes to me from time to time these days. A respectable man, beyond hatred.

It was only much later that I realised I'd only spent three years in jail. Three years – that's nothing! Why did it feel so long when I was in my cell? And how did Keong change so quickly? That's when I felt bitter. I'd never held a grudge against him, not even for coming back to Klang and bringing Evil into my life. When I talked about it to members of the church some years later they said, You must forgive him the way God forgives you. And I thought, There's nothing for me to forgive; I don't feel anything towards him. But when I saw him in the courtroom and thought of how quickly he'd changed, I felt angry. He had taken hold of time and mastered it, I had let myself be crushed by it. It was only three years, I told myself, only three years – you can make up that time and turn things round for yourself. But I knew I was no longer capable of changing my life. Evolution is a funny thing. For the longest time, you believe in the power of change – in your ability to mould your life through even the smallest acts. Even buying a four-digit lottery ticket feels loaded with optimism, as if those five bucks might turn into a twenty-thousand bonanza and transform your life. Then one day it disappears, that blind devotion to hope, and you know that even if you pray all day, nothing will happen to you. My anger was directed at myself, I didn't blame Keong. Seeing him reminded me of the person I could no longer be.

As for the other man, his face remains a blank, even though it should be the one thing I remember from that night. In my defence, it was very dark when I first saw him. What's more, he turned away from me before I picked up the piece of wood. I couldn't see his face when I struck him.

October 6th

Towards the end of the trial my lawyer tried to explain to the jury the kind of childhood I had experienced. She was young and clever, she worked for free, she wanted to help me. I understood that my life was being used as an excuse for many things. I listened to her speak about me, and though the facts were true, I felt as if she was describing someone else, someone who had grown up close to me, maybe in a village a couple of miles up the coast. Another guy who shared my name, which she kept repeating. Lee Hock Lye. Lee Hock Lye. Always my full name. Sometimes she said, Lee Hock Lye, also known as Jayden Lee, which made the name sound fake, as if I'd made it up – which I had. But still, it was my name – had become my name. I had chosen it when I'd found proper work and things were going well, just before I got married. It sounded good, people liked it – they hadn't heard anything like it before. It was a cool name that looked professional on the calling cards that I had printed when business started going well. Jayden – that was me, but each time she pronounced the name in front of the entire courtroom it felt as though she was referring to someone else, because she said it as two separate words. Jay, Den. As if she found it unnatural. Every time I heard it, I felt as though the name was being prised away from me, and that I never truly owned it. Also known as. I should never have taken that name, I was foolish to have chosen it.

Excerpted from We, the Survivors by Tash Aw. Copyright © 2019 by Tash Aw. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.