Banyan Moon, by Thao Thai (Mariner Books, 2023, 336 pp, $30), a "Read* with Jenna" selection. Reviewed by Skye Anderson.
A Book Club Read
Banyan Moon is a lovely, lyrical sweet book (yet leaving the reader a bit apprehensive in parts) about three generations of strong women living in Vietnam, Florida, and Michigan, with lives intertwining and repeating, with the youngest being so very brave and the eldest even braver. They attack each other with word weapons and still live together in a big old decrepit house in the country with a huge old banyan tree in the front yard. Both the house and the tree seeming to be major characters. . . .
Our Banyan women survive so much; deaths and relocations and betrayal and inheritance and abuse and objects saved and especially the secrets women withhold from each other but slowly either reveal or destroy as they learn to accept each other a little bit more. We live the three generations along with Ann and Huong and Minh yet also glimpse the grandmother's mother and the granddaughter's child-to-be.
The reader will be surprised by several events but then realize that all the loose ends become tied up nicely with a bow in a lovely package for the reader, that there is only one way the various events can turn out and not in the way the reader may expect.
Mothers and Daughters (reminiscent of Turgenev's Fathers and Sons): Universal
Does a mother ever cease being a mother to her daughter even when she grows up? Can a daughter become mother to her mother? Does understanding and acceptace skip a generation sometimes with grandmother and granddaughter closer to each other than to the one in the middle and vice versa? They may love one another but do they really like one another?
The reader will relive her own childhood and the relationship she has (or had) with her own mother (and daughter). The complexity of the relationships in Banyan are focused on the complexity of the stories with the grandmother narrating from her grave, with chapters alternating among the three narrators, with skipping from place to place and time to time. And yet, the reader does not easily become lost in the stories.
You will see yourself in one of the women at times. You will see your mother in one of them but not the same one all the way through the book. Men will also see their mothers and their wives and their daughters. If you don't see your family, you will see the family you dream of. I would not be surprised if, after reading Banyan, some relationships are mended.
Writing Style
Author Thao Thai could have written this saga of a family over time and geography, wholely set in America or, instead of using the Vietnamese experience, used the Italian experience or the Irish, or the Scandinavian, or the Jewish or - pick any US city and you would love that story just as much as this one.
Her choice of words to describe everyday things is unique and memorable.
Readers will argue about the characters and the choices they made. Readers will disagree about the paths a character takes but will realize the inevitability of it all. And what about the minor characters, the men? And the significance of the house itself? Where is the study guide for Banyan, the reader's guide for book club discussions?
What would I change? I would add a small glossary to explain some of the Vietnamese pronouns that represent a person's status such as little one, or older "sister," or em, chi, anh, ba, con, co, ong (I don't have access to tone marks or diacritical marks in this font). These pronouns reflect the age, gender, closeness to the speaker or place in the family.
And I wonder about the meaning, if any, behind the choice of Huong's brother's name: Phuoc. . . .
*Jenna Bush Hager
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