I am terribly late to the hype (as usual), but I finally read Tall Order, the biography of Goh Chok Tong. Goh Chok Tong is the second prime minister of Singapore and Tall Order is supposed to be the first volume in a two volume series.

Since this is Volume One, Tall Order doesn’t try to cover all the events in Goh Chok Tong’s life till the present. Instead, the book focuses on Goh Chok Tong’s childhood and early life in the public service (Part 1: The Young Goh), his entry into Politics (Part 2: The Holy Order), his journey towards being the second prime minister (Part 3: Building a Brand), ending with him assuming the role of prime minister (Part 4: Towards the Istana).

Tall Order draws heavily on interviews with Goh Chok Tong and those who knew him. In fact, the last section of the book contains Goh’s recollections of the years covered in the previous few chapters! I thought it was eye-opening to hear from the man himself.

Even though Goh Chok Tong is the second prime minister of Singapore, I’ve always had the image that he was there to keep the country going until Lee Hsien Loong, our third and current prime minister, could take the reins. After reading this book, I realised how wrong I was – Goh Chok Tong was not only the one who scouted Lee Hsien Loong, he was also the one that his peers picked to be the next prime minister! He may have had the image of a seat-warmer in the public’s eyes, but among his peers, things were definitely different.

And as someone who grew up in an already-prosperous Singapore, this book helped me realise just how much we’ve come in so short a time. It’s probably a tired narrative by now, but reading about Goh’s early years in the public service and what things were like when he entered politics made me realise just how far we’ve come! And it was pretty interesting reading his opinions on the opposition parties too.

I really liked that the author has interviewed Goh and many people around him, which lets you have a look behind the curtain of PAP politics. There aren’t any intimate stories about Goh’s family because that’s out of bounds, but for an easy to read book on the workings of Singapore in the early days (and a biography of Goh Chok Tong), this is something that I would recommend.