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50books_poc6. Julia Alvarez, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.
Collection of reverse-chronological short stories about four daughters who emigrated from the Dominican Republic to the U.S. after their father was suspected of participating in a CIA-mediated political coup.
I don't have a lot to say about this one. I picked it up as part of Banned Books Week (challenged for sexual content, I would guess, but I don't remember). It's well-written and an engaging read, and there are particular images and moments that have stayed with me. But I also feel very neutral about it, somehow.
7. Monique Truong, The Book of Salt.
Lovely-amazing! Fictional memoir of a gay Vietnamese cook employed by Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in Paris. (Or perhaps the gay Vietnamese cook employed by same -- I haven't been able to discover if he was a historical character.) The prose is beautiful, and the storytelling richly woven back upon itself. As a narrator, Binh is scythingly perceptive, with a Parker-esque edge to his tongue. Class and power and empire and racism and sex and food and language and gender and family and--! The book narrates Binh's lifelong quest for love, both at home in Vietnam and as an exile. The book is full of walls -- language, class, race, expectations, shame -- and navigates the maze with a sense of bittersweet, painfully aware of the maze and separation created by these walls.
8. Shaun Tan, The Arrival.
Fantastical, wonderful, emotional narrative of being an emigrant. Beautiful, too. All illustrations, no words, and effective.
Go, find a copy. And then find a quiet corner in which you can sit with it.
Collection of reverse-chronological short stories about four daughters who emigrated from the Dominican Republic to the U.S. after their father was suspected of participating in a CIA-mediated political coup.
I don't have a lot to say about this one. I picked it up as part of Banned Books Week (challenged for sexual content, I would guess, but I don't remember). It's well-written and an engaging read, and there are particular images and moments that have stayed with me. But I also feel very neutral about it, somehow.
7. Monique Truong, The Book of Salt.
Lovely-amazing! Fictional memoir of a gay Vietnamese cook employed by Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in Paris. (Or perhaps the gay Vietnamese cook employed by same -- I haven't been able to discover if he was a historical character.) The prose is beautiful, and the storytelling richly woven back upon itself. As a narrator, Binh is scythingly perceptive, with a Parker-esque edge to his tongue. Class and power and empire and racism and sex and food and language and gender and family and--! The book narrates Binh's lifelong quest for love, both at home in Vietnam and as an exile. The book is full of walls -- language, class, race, expectations, shame -- and navigates the maze with a sense of bittersweet, painfully aware of the maze and separation created by these walls.
8. Shaun Tan, The Arrival.
Fantastical, wonderful, emotional narrative of being an emigrant. Beautiful, too. All illustrations, no words, and effective.
Go, find a copy. And then find a quiet corner in which you can sit with it.
