Banyan Moon

Maybe I just picked the wrong time to read Thao Thai's novel Banyan Moon (#1,309).  It's been a popular book club choice, but I have to admit I got bogged down in the middle, and just barely managed to soldier on and finish it.  Should I have bothered?  I'm not sure.

Banyan House takes a central role in this family saga of three generations of women, the oldest of whom came from Vietnam at the end of the war in the 70s.  The point of view rotates between the grandmother, mother and daughter at different points in their lives.  Relationships are fraught with love and jealousy amongst them poisoning their attitudes.

Ann, the youngest has escaped the backwater Florida town where she grew up as soon as she graduated high school.  But her unexpected pregnancy brings her back to Banyan House just after her beloved grandmother dies.  Much to their surprise, Minh has left Banyan House jointly to Huong and Ann, in hopes that it will bring this mother and daughter closer.  Maybe.  But the story just petered out at the end in terms of emotional punch, leaving me with a meh attitude about the book.  There were also a number of elements throughout the story which were just left hanging.  For example, there were mysterious hints dropped several times about just how Minh acquired the crumbling mansion in the first place.  No satisfactory explanation was ever given.  If it wasn't part of the plot, why hint at it?

Perhaps it's also because I just finished reading Amy Tan's debut novel The Joy Luck Club whose story of Chinese mother/daughter relationships is so compelling it was hard to put down.  I kept drawing parallels between the two books and Banyan Moon suffered in the comparisons.

Just as aside, Thao Thai also writes under the name Nora Ngyuyen, and I really enjoyed her Adam and Evie's Matchmaking Tour.   Perhaps you should check that out instead!