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A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK
‘A riveting mother-daughter tale’ Elle
‘Beautifully gripping’ Heat
‘A joy to read’ Christina Baker Kline, author of The Exiles
Ann Tran is already at a crossroads when she gets the call that her beloved grandmother, Minh, has died. Ann has built a seemingly perfect life. She lives in a beautiful lake house and has a charming professor boyfriend, but it all crumbles away with one positive pregnancy test.
With both her relationship and carefully planned future now in question, Ann returns home to Florida to face her estranged mother, Hu’o’ng. Under the same roof for the first time in years, mother and daughter must face the simmering questions of their past, while trying to rebuild their relationship without the one person who’s always held them together.
Running parallel to this is Minh’s story, as she goes from a lovestruck teenager living in the shadow of the Vietnam War to a determined young mother immigrating to America in search of a better life. And when Ann makes a shocking discovery in the Banyan House’s attic, long-buried secrets come to light as it becomes clear how decisions Minh made in her youth affected the rest of her life and her family.
Spanning decades and continents, from 1960s Vietnam to the wild swamplands of the Florida coast, Banyan Moon is a stunning and deeply moving story of mothers and daughters, the things we inherit, and the lives we choose to make out of that inheritance.
‘Heart-shatteringly beautiful’ Nguyen Phan Que Mai, author of The Mountains Sing
‘A riveting mother-daughter tale’ Elle
‘Beautifully gripping’ Heat
‘A joy to read’ Christina Baker Kline, author of The Exiles
Ann Tran is already at a crossroads when she gets the call that her beloved grandmother, Minh, has died. Ann has built a seemingly perfect life. She lives in a beautiful lake house and has a charming professor boyfriend, but it all crumbles away with one positive pregnancy test.
With both her relationship and carefully planned future now in question, Ann returns home to Florida to face her estranged mother, Hu’o’ng. Under the same roof for the first time in years, mother and daughter must face the simmering questions of their past, while trying to rebuild their relationship without the one person who’s always held them together.
Running parallel to this is Minh’s story, as she goes from a lovestruck teenager living in the shadow of the Vietnam War to a determined young mother immigrating to America in search of a better life. And when Ann makes a shocking discovery in the Banyan House’s attic, long-buried secrets come to light as it becomes clear how decisions Minh made in her youth affected the rest of her life and her family.
Spanning decades and continents, from 1960s Vietnam to the wild swamplands of the Florida coast, Banyan Moon is a stunning and deeply moving story of mothers and daughters, the things we inherit, and the lives we choose to make out of that inheritance.
‘Heart-shatteringly beautiful’ Nguyen Phan Que Mai, author of The Mountains Sing
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Reviews
A beautifully written, page-turning novel . . . Banyan Moon is a celebration of life in all its forms and a joy to read
Heart-shatteringly beautiful . . . a love letter to keepers of secrets, to motherhood, family and survival. Thao Thai is a major talent
Tender, gripping and heartbreaking. A haunting page turner that reexamines lineage, motherhood, and what it means to be a survivor . . . A welcome debut from a stunning voice who will forever impact the Vietnamese American canon
An honest and aching exploration of the gulf between generations . . . A novel of hope, a story of forgiveness, a reminder that even though we can never fully know the people closest to us, it is worth the try
An intricately woven story of three generations of women, surviving and living each in their own way. This novel has everything you want: desire, betrayal, grit, tenderness, pride, love, and . . . the sacred secrets we make and keep to protect what we hold dear
Thao Thai captures the complexities of familial love with an unflinching, yet gorgeously lyric, eye. Banyan Moon is an ambitious and masterful debut!
A spellbinding and intricately layered story, Banyan Moon celebrates Vietnamese women
Haunting, a little spooky and occasionally heartbreaking, this sweeping debut novel follows three generations of Vietnamese women as they try to find their way in the world
Powerful
A riveting mother-daughter tale spanning two different timelines, and anchored by the magnetic pull of a Gothic home known as the Banyan House, Banyan Moon is author Thao Thai's beautiful debut
A beautifully gripping tale about motherhood
Pleasurably atmospheric . . . Banyan Moon is strongest when exploring the unique blend of contempt and fury that can exist between mothers and daughters . . . Thai renders these feelings with nuance and a familiarity that is sometimes difficult to bear
Well worth reading