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The Night Tiger by Yangsze ChooI totally enjoyed reading The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo. This book is overflowing with mystical Asian phenomena, Weretigers, Chinese number superstitions, missing fingers, twins and more. The novel is set in 1930’s in Malaysia during Colonial rule. The first pages captured my imagination. “The old man opens his watery blue eyes, those colonial foreign eyes that had frightened Ren so much in the beginning, and whispers something. The boy bends his cropped head closer. “Remember.” “Say it.” The hoarse rasp is fading. “When you are dead, I will find your missing finger.” Ren replies in a clear, small voice. “And?” He hesitates. “And bury it in your grave.” “Good.” The old man draws a ratline breath. “You must get it back before the forty-nine days of my soul are over.” I was hooked. Forty-Four is an unlucky number for Chinese because it sounds like “die, definitely die.” Someone is stealing fingers from the pathology specimen room. A headless torso turns up in a garden and the 5 Virtues kept me turning pages.There is also a romantic thread throughout the story. Learn more about the book and the author in NPR interview with the author, “In 'The Night Tiger,' Fantastic Beasts Of Colonial Malaysia." Mothers Who Run AwayI recently finished two books on mothers who abandoned their children. The first was Patsy by Nicole Dennis-Benn, whose main character is a young, single and gay Jamaican women who leaves Jamaica and her five year old daughter named Tru to start a new life in the United States. Her excuse is she wants to provide Tru, a better life. The night Patsy tells Tru she is leaving is excruciatingly painful to read.
"Patsy can vaguely make out the expression on her daughter's face. 'It will only be for a few months', she says to Tru unable to look straight at her. 'Why?' Tru asks. 'Why yuh going without me?' Patsy sighs. She quietly praises JPS in this moment. the darkness is helpful as she struggles to find the words behind the veil. What can a young woman on the brink of defeat say to the questioning face of her five-year-old daughter? Where is the honor in her daughter knowing she owns nothing? Not her dream. Not her life. Not herself. What can she give her." Patsy knows she will never return to Jamaica.and finds out quickly that life is not easy for an illegal alien in Brooklyn. Ten years go by before she contacts her daughter who is now 16 years old. Those ten years have been devastating for Tru and for Patsy. It is a painful story to read about a child who struggles from the loss of her mother's love every day and a mother filled with guilt because she cannot love her child. The second novel is The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. Maeve and her brother are devastated when their mother one day just leaves the house and doesn't return. Their father remarries to a women with two children who is only interested in his mansion "The Dutch House" and his money. Ten-year-old Maeve is left in charge of her young brother. The two become very close and lean on each other over the years. The stepmother despises her stepchildren. After their father dies, the stepmother inherits everything and leaves them with nothing. When Maeve become critically ill, her long lost mother shows up at the hospital. Maeve wants dearly to have her mother and the relationship she has always dreamed. Her brother is not as forgiving and thinks, "There is no story of the prodigal mother. The rich man didn't call for a banquet.to celebrate the return of his erstwhile wife. The sons, having stuck it out for all those years at home, do not hang garlands on the doorways, kill the sheep, bring forth the wine. When she left them she killed them all, each in his own way, and now, decades later, they didn't want her back. they hurried down the road to lock the gate, the father and the sons together, the wind whipping at their coats. A friend had ripped them off. They knew she was coming and the gate must be locked." Their mother didn't feel she was needed, they had servants and a cook that performed her motherly duties. She thought her children would be fine with their father growing up in the Dutch House. There are others in the world that needed her help. She goes on the care for the poor in India, then back to the United States and to her hometown.having lived the last 10 or so years in the same city as her children without contacting them. "Why India?" I had meant to sit through the conversation in silence but on this point my curiosity got the better of me...."I read an article in a magazine about Mother Teresa, how she asked the sisters to send her to Calcutta to help the destitutes. I can't remember what magazine it was now. Something you father subscribed to." I really enjoyed the story about the Dutch House. Patchett made a house come alive. Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean KwokSylvie Lee has disappeared while on a trip to the Netherlands to visit her dying grandmother. Sylvie has lived most of her life with her Grandmother after her parents were unable to care for her when they immigrated to the United States. Later she is reunited with her mother and father when her sister, Amy is born. The novel revolves around the search to find Sylvie. I enjoyed the Netherlands setting and the determination of Amy to find her sister. I found the ending rushed and unrealistic. Overall, the story and characters kept me engaged..Themes of self-identity, immigration, family ties and secrets provide an intriguing read. The Secret Life of Sisters: On Searching for Sylvie Lee - .Jung Yun, July 9, 2019 The LA Review of Books
Sweet Beet Sliders
Carol Shepley, author and fellow bookie sent me this fabulous interview.and I just had to pass this wonderful talk between two of our favorite authors. They both have new books out. Patchett has The Dutch House and Strout's Olive, Again.
Entertainment magazine interviews two of Book Club Extraordinaire' favorite authors, Ann Patchett and Elizabeth Strout. Master Class: EW puts Ann Patchett and Elizabeth Strout in conversation By Leah Greenblatt October 15, 2019 at 12:30 PM EDT |
Kathy Corey
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