The Sweetest Fruits: A Novel Hardcover – September 3, 2019
by Monique Truong (Author)
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"A sublime, many-voiced novel of voyage and reinvention" (Anthony Marra)
"[Truong] imagines the extraordinary lives of three women who loved an extraordinary man [and] creates distinct, engaging voices for these women" (Kirkus Reviews)
A Greek woman tells of how she willed herself out of her father's cloistered house, married an Irish officer in the British Army, and came to Ireland with her two-year-old son in 1852, only to be forced to leave without him soon after. An African American woman, born into slavery on a Kentucky plantation, makes her way to Cincinnati after the Civil War to work as a boarding house cook, where in 1872 she meets and marries an up-and-coming newspaper reporter. In Matsue, Japan, in 1891, a former samurai's daughter is introduced to a newly arrived English teacher, and becomes the mother of his four children and his unsung literary collaborator.
The lives of writers can often best be understood through the eyes of those who nurtured them and made their work possible. In The Sweetest Fruits, these three women tell the story of their time with Lafcadio Hearn, a globetrotting writer best known for his books about Meiji-era Japan. In their own unorthodox ways, these women are also intrepid travelers and explorers. Their accounts witness Hearn's remarkable life but also seek to witness their own existence and luminous will to live unbounded by gender, race, and the mores of their time. Each is a gifted storyteller with her own precise reason for sharing her story, and together their voices offer a revealing, often contradictory portrait of Hearn. With brilliant sensitivity and an unstinting eye, Truong illuminates the women's tenacity and their struggles in a novel that circumnavigates the globe in the search for love, family, home, and belonging.
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Print length
304 pages
Language
English
Publisher
Viking
Publication date
September 3, 2019
Dimensions
5.81 x 0.99 x 8.53 inches
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From the Publisher
The Sweetest Fruits
The Sweetest Fruit
The Sweetest Fruit
Editorial Reviews
Review
Praise for The Sweetest Fruits:
A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice
Winner of the Binghamton Center for Writers’ John Gardner Fiction Prize
"A marvelous mixture of fact and imagination . . . Truong’s lush style is on gorgeous display in these pages, her imagery evoking hidden emotional depths . . . While the lives, loves and adventures of Lafcadio Hearn hold center stage in this novel, these are set off by a rich brocade of social critiques — of slavery, colonization and the repression of women. With great generosity and compassion, Truong explores the difference between writing and telling stories, with the question of who gets to speak and who remains silent." —Diana Abu-Jaber, The Washington Post
"A delicate, impressionistic tale . . . Truong is exploring personal memory in all its creative and contradictory subjectivity . . . [The Sweetest Fruits] is propelled not by action but by the retrospective piecing together that happens once a relationship is over. Spurred by nostalgia, regret, longing and anger, each woman examines her memories . . . As Setsu observes, 'to tell another’s story is to bring him to life,' but here it’s the women who achieve that feat rather than the man who connected them." —Priya Parmar, The New York Times Book Review
"I've been addicted to Truong's writing ever since her debut, The Book of Salt, a work of historical fiction incorporating real people that felt—unlike much of that genre—lush, invigorating, and real. Her third novel fictionalizes Greek-Irish writer Lafcadio Hearn but through the eyes of only his mother and his two wives—one a freed American slave, the other his Japanese translator." —Boris Kachka, New York Magazine
"Monique Truong’s nomadic tale is a look at the storied life of 19th century writer and expeditionist Lafcadio Hearn through the eyes of the women who knew him best. Sweeping in scope and written in tight, precise language, it’s a read-into-the-night pick." —Marie Claire
"Truong transforms author Lafcadio Hearn’s biography into a revelatory mystery by giving voice to three women who shaped him." —Jane Ciabattari, BBC
"Mesmerizing . . . Truong focuses on the mostly neglected women in Hearn’s life, imagining the struggles and sorrows of his mother, and, looking at him through the eyes of his two wives, imparts searing counterpoints to the iconic Hearn . . . In going beyond the knowable and guiding us through the imaginable, Truong takes the measure of the man through his women in coruscating prose." —Jeff Kingston, Los Angeles Review of Books
"Monique Truong brings to life brave, spirited women left out of a history that privileges what Toni Morrison called 'the master narrative.' In doing so, she humanizes rather than diminishes Hearn. Through disparate, often contradictory narratives, she invites further investigation: keep telling it slant, whatever it takes, to reveal, as Dickinson writes, 'truth’s superb surprise'—that sweetest of all fruits. A worthy endeavor at any time, it’s an especially urgent one today." —World Literature Today
“A captivating work of historical fiction that flung me into three very different places in time around the world . . . [I was] so impressed with Truong’s ability to write in such disparate voices and bring together a really original novel.” —Cathy Erway, HuffPost
"An absolutely brilliant intersection of fiction and history, politics and culture, love and loss." —Hyphen Magazine
"Truong’s innovative narration gives us the stories of three incredible women right at the moments those stories are being repurposed or lost. Even more importantly, it shows us those erasures in process. . . . Truong’s genius for finding joy and life amidst trauma and dislocation ensures that the novel she germinated from the traces left by Patrick Lafcadio Hearn is filled with plenty and sweetness, too. In The Sweetest Fruits, even fragmented and forgotten stories offer sustenance. And in nourishing them it nourishes us." —Believer
"Truong is among the most talented literary fiction writers working in the United States . . . [The Sweetest Fruits is] an exciting new development in her writing career . . . For anyone whose life feels overshadowed by a more powerful figure, or even just not centered at any point in life for reasons beyond one’s control, reading [this] novel can be a vindicating experience." —Rei Magosaki, Los Angeles Review of Books
"An absorbing dive into disparate places and societies, [The Sweetest Fruits] illustrates the critical roles women have played in the accomplishments of men. It also offers an intimate portrait of each region’s food culture, told through its characters." —Food & Wine
“An inspired look at one of the most original characters of the 19th century.” —Mental Floss
“Truong deserves considerable praise for [this] beautiful, complex story . . . As a moving, poignant novel, [The Sweetest Fruits] is magnificent; as a recontextualization of malestream history, it is long overdue.” —PopMatters
"The globetrotting 19th-century writer Lafcadio Hearn may be at the heart of Truong’s entrancing novel, but it derives its power from the sequence of three women who loved him . . . Truong’s smart novel, told in evocative, lush language, raises important questions." —The National Book Review
"A glorious imaginative reclamation of the stories of those who loved and nurtured [Lafcadio] Hearn and his storytelling." —Electric Literature
"In The Sweetest Fruits, Monique Truong does what she does best, painting a vivid portrait of privilege, restlessness, and tenacity through the conflicting experiences of characters grappling with their senses of love, family, and home." —Kevin Chau, Lit Hub, "Most Anticipated Books of 2019"
"In this globetrotting, luminous novel, the three narrators offer an honest, contradictory portrait of the man they knew that highlights the social expectations of their gender, race, and class for their time. Like [Truong's] first novel, The Book of Salt, The Sweetest Fruits leads readers [into] a sweeping narrative that poses questions about belonging, existence, and storytelling." —Kate Gavino, The Millions, "Most Anticipated: The Great Second-Half 2019 Book Preview"
"[A] sparkling, imaginative historical novel." —Philadelphia Inquirer
"Without ever giving him a voice, this thoughtfully crafted, brilliantly researched novel is an intimate look into [Hearn’s] strange, storied life." —Columbia Magazine
"[Truong's] sweeping prose lifts up the unsung women behind Hearn, a man larger than life in part thanks to those whom history has failed to note." —Observer, "The Must-Read New Books of Fall 2019"
"[A] remarkable novel about love, the power of memory, and betrayal . . . Truong is dazzling on the sentence level, and she inhabits each of these three women brilliantly. Truong’s command of voice and historical knowledge brings the stories of these remarkable women to life." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Extraordinary . . . by reclaiming these exemplary women’s voices, Truong enhances history with illuminating herstory too long overlooked." —Terry Hong, Booklist (starred review)
"It isn't only the fantastic Lafcadio Hearn who springs to new life in these pages. The women around him do as well, even as they mix the extraordinary and the ordinary in an exhilarating new way. The Sweetest Fruits is brilliant and heartbreaking--I was transfixed." —Gish Jen, author of Typical American
"Monique Truong has composed a sublime, many-voiced novel of voyage and reinvention. It will cross horizons, yet remain burrowed in your heart." —Anthony Marra, author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
"Intimate and sensuous yet majestic in scope, The Sweetest Fruits is a rapturous, glorious novel, extraordinarily alive to the world." —Idra Novey, author of Those Who Knew
"Presented in four courses from the perspective of the women closest to him, The Sweetest Fruits is a feast you’ll want to devour for its arresting metaphors and its beautiful prose." —Anita Lo, author of Solo: A Modern Cookbook for One
"[Truong] imagines the extraordinary lives of three women who loved an extraordinary man [and] creates distinct, engaging voices for these women . . . Bold [and] original.” —Kirkus Reviews
Praise for Monique Truong:
"Impressive and ambitious . . . An irresistible, scrupulously engineered confection that weaves together history, art, and human nature . . . Displays the author's supple imagination on every page." —The Los Angeles Times on The Book of Salt
"A debut novel of pungent sensuousness and intricate, inspired imagination . . . A marvelous tale." —Elle on The Book of Salt
"A deeply compassionate and artfully crafted novel about being foreign and family at the same time by the writer whose debut, The Book of Salt, swept us away." —O: The Oprah Magazine on Bitter in the Mouth
About the Author
Monique Truong is the author of two novels, The Book of Salt and Bitter in the Mouth, and her work has been published in fifteen countries. Her awards and honors include the PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship, the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, the Asian American Literary Award, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Patricio Lafcadio Hearn was born hungry. I could tell by the way that he suckled. From the first time that his mouth found the nipple, he was not wont to let it go, his eyes opened and unblinking, watching and daring me to tug myself from him.
All babies were born with an empty stomach, but not all of them were born with such need in their eyes.
His elder brother, Giorgio, my first blessed one, had to be coaxed and tricked. The tip of my little finger dipped in honey was what he took first into his rosebud mouth. Then, patiently, I would guide him to my breast, where honey and milk would mix. This soothed him, but it was not enough to keep him. Giorgio shared my milk with Patricio for less than two months.
I beg of you do not call them "George" and "Patrick." It is not their names. Their father's language is not mine.
Even before I was certain that there would be a blessed second, I suffered his appetite, which was growing in me swift and strong. Patricio demanded of me the small things from the sea. Whelks, which no one sold because the people on Santa Maura, same as on Cerigo, the island where I was born, would not buy something that they could gather like pebbles at the shore. In the mornings, I would leave my first with Old Iota, the only woman on our lane with no children of her own, in order to bend over the wet sand until I felt light-headed or until my basket was full. Patricio wanted the whelks boiled, their spiral of flesh removed one by one. He allowed me olive oil and lemon juice with them but never vinegar.
When there was no longer a doubt and whelks became too difficult for me to collect, Patricio insisted on cockles, of which there were sellers because cockles were found on the sandbars far from shore, where the tide came in like the hand of God.
To lose your life for mere cockles is a curse as old as the sea, and may you never hear it spoken.
Like his father, Patricio disliked garlic. He purged me of all foods, even the favored cockles, if they took on its flavor. I would whisper to him that these cloves were the pearls of the land, holding them close to my swollen belly so that he could become accustomed to their scent, but he was not to be convinced. He emptied and emptied me again until I was starving. I soon gave up on the hope of garlic and steamed the cockles open with a sliver of shallot instead. Patricio could not get enough of those briny creatures. It took buckets of them to fill us.
During the last months when we were one, Patricio confined us to sea urchins, their egg-yolk bodies scooped onto chunks of bread. Every day, to make sure that we had enough, Old Iota paid four boys to wade into the shallows at low tides, where these spiny orbs darkened the water like the shadows of gulls flying overhead. Fattened on this fare, day in and day out, I took on such weight that I could take only a few steps around the bed, an animal tied to a stake.
By then Charles-the father of Giorgio, Patricio, and soon, God willing, my blessed third-was already on another island, in waters so far away that I could not understand the distance between us. Before his ship set sail, Charles had told me the exact nautical miles between the islands of Santa Maura and Dominica, but a long string of numbers was as useless to me as the letters of an alphabet.
When I open my mouth, I can choose between two languages, Venetian and Romaic, but on paper I cannot decipher either one. When I was young, I had begged to join my elder brothers in their daily lessons, but my father refused. He said that if I ever left his house, I would enter into the House of God or the house of my husband. In either structure, there would be a man present to tell me what was written and what was important to know.
My father was not thinking about a man named Charles Bush Hearn from the island of Ireland when he told me my fate. My father was not a man of original thoughts. He repeated what came out of the mouths of other men, primarily those of nobility, minor like himself. He taught my two brothers to do the same. They all believed that this echoing made them wise and far wiser than me.
To be a daughter is another curse as old as the sea, and I was born hearing it.
Giorgio was six months in this world, and Patricio was five months in me, when Charles left us in Lefkada town, on Santa Maura Island, in the care of Old Iota. When I first met her, I could see that she was not really old. I recognized her as the woman who lived a few doorways down from mine. She and I had never traded words. If I were to be honest with God, I never traded words with any woman on that lane until my firstborn, Giorgio, had left it shrouded in myrtle leaves. After my saint of a boy, my shadow of a child departed before a full year of life, I wanted to blame God, to curse Him with all the profane words that I had heard my brothers use against Charles and me, but I did not. I needed Him to be there for Patricio.
Giorgio had been denied the Sacrament of Holy Baptism because of my sins. The Orthodox Church did not want his soul when he was born to me, and the Orthodox Church did not want his soul upon his leaving me. There could be no funeral service for Giorgio among the Icons, the censers, and the beeswax candles. No "Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us" intoned three times. No "Blessed are those whose way is blameless," which so rightly described my blessed first. No "With the Saints give rest, O Christ, the soul of your servant where there is no pain, nor sorrow, nor suffering, but life everlasting."
The full weight of what I had done broke me on that morning of sunlight and rain when I could not wake Giorgio from his sleep. I wanted to throw my worthless shards onto the cobblestones and let passersby grind them into dust with the heels of their shoes, but I had to gather them up for Patricio. I could not fail two sons. I did not know then that there would be a blessed third who, God willing, will be another son.
At the graveside, I held on to Patricio's sleeping body so tightly that Old Iota had to pull my arms apart so that he could breathe. There were three of us that afternoon, taking in air. The farmer, who had dug the small basin of dirt among his quince trees for an indecent price because he knew that it was there or the sea, refused to be present, as if hiding in his house meant that God would not see his greed. As sunlight poured down upon us, I knew in my heart that it was not God who had rejected my son. It was men who had rejected him. Perhaps that thought was another of my sins. Perhaps I added to my tally by intoning three times "Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us."
Old Iota sucked in her breath when she heard those words coming from my mouth. We both knew that at the graveside they belonged in the mouth of a priest. But what was I to do in the face of absence and silence? Giorgio was my child and a child of God. I knew both to be true. I listened to my heart that day, and it was a fist pounding with anger. My heart opened my mouth. My mouth pleaded, even if to no avail, for my blessed Giorgio.
Cradled in my arms, Patricio slept. He must have felt my body trembling when the farmer emerged at last from his house to shovel dirt, cleaner than himself, onto my blessed one. Patricio must have heard the summer soil crumbling as it hit the myrtle leaves and then the small wooden box beneath. It was the sound of a sudden downpour, and it made me look up at the sky. The date of Giorgio's passing, August 17, 1850, I have committed to memory, but it was this rain of dirt that marked when my blessed one was taken from me, when the distance separating his body from mine became eternal. Words and numbers could never do the same.
On our lane, the mothers-previously so close-lipped, their eyes hooded in judgment-felt pity toward me. They came to my front door, in twos and threes, with whole walnuts, hazelnuts, and almonds. In Lefkada town, these were offered for the remission of the sins of the recently departed. The custom was familiar to me, but their choice of offerings was not. Every night, I threw the walnuts, hazelnuts, and almonds away with the vegetable scraps. Every morning, Old Iota picked them out, wiped clean their hard shells, and stored them in a clean cloth sack. By the end of the first week, she had enough for months' worth of baking. She was practical in ways that I had yet to learn.
I asked Old Iota if she knew what these mothers-I did not say "mothers," I said "hags"-had said about her when she was not in the room.
Without looking up from the eggplant peelings and the tomato seeds that her hands were searching through, Old Iota asked whether I knew that the walnuts, hazelnuts, and almonds were not for Giorgio's sins but for mine. "On Santa Maura Island," she said, "the hags bring sugared almonds when a baby passes."
The women had whispered to me-as if Old Iota did not know the details of her own life and might overhear them and learn something new-a story that began with a sixteen-year-old Iona, as she was called then, the only daughter of a widower who married her off to the eldest son of a farming family, a day's mule ride from Lefkada town.
Iona did not meet her husband until the day that they received the Sacrament of Marriage. In a house in the middle of a sea of olive trees, Iona then gave birth to five boys in six years, but none of them had a heart that would beat for more than a month, the last one not even a day.
How many dishes of sugared almonds did Iona discard before she understood that there would be another? The mothers on the nearby farms would continue to offer them, a custom of the Orthodox Church but with roots that were deeper, older, and more practical. These mothers with their work-worn hands were guiding Iona onto her back again, so that she could be one of them again. They told Iona to eat half of the sugared almonds, to let their sweetness spread over her tongue, and then feed the rest to her husband with her fingers. This made Iona blush. "Another baby will soon grace you," said these mothers. They said "grace" to cover up the animal acts that they wanted for her, and Iona did as she was told.
Iona's last born died within moments of opening his eyes and was not baptized before he took his last breath. Iona's husband left her and the body of this baby, who would always be lonely in Purgatory while his four elder brothers had one another's company in the Kingdom of Heaven, at the front door of her father's house. That was when Iona first met the quince farmer with the small graves hidden among his trees.
At the age of twenty-two, Iona had nothing. Upon her return to Lefkada town, her neighbors gave her a new name and a new age. Her cheeks caved. Her breasts sagged. Her hair streaked with white. The black dresses of widows became her habit, and Old Iota became her name.
When Charles hired Old Iota, she was twenty-eight, and I was twenty-six.
It was the sixteen-year-old Iona whom I thought of whenever I found myself staring at her. I searched her forehead, creased like a slept-in bedsheet, her hands knobbed and full of bones, and I wondered if she ever felt graced by her husband, whether sweetness ever spread from Iona's tongue down to the rest of her as well. Whenever I thought about the animal that she once was, I knew that I was missing Charles, not with my heart.
I could not write to my husband of my thoughts for him, so I saved them for Holy Confession at the Church of Santa Paraskevi, where the Reverend Father would listen to my words until he stifled a moan.
Elesa, you hesitated at "moan." Did your mother-may she rest in peace-never teach you this word in Venetian? You can write it down in English, if you need. Patricio will know what it means one day.
Afterward, I intoned the Prayer of Repentance. Its last line, "Teach me both to desire and to do only what pleases You," was an honest plea. Then I closed my eyes and waited. In the darkness, the body I saw was not Charles's and certainly not the Reverend Father's, whose long beard was a bib for rusk crumbs and droplets of red wine. I saw the Son of God, His limbs gilded, His hair long and woman-like, His wounds displayed and unashamed. I had worshipped at His nailed feet since I was a young girl, and it was His body that I saw first among men. Without the image of the Crucifixion, how would I have known of a man's muscled thighs, his taut abdomen, and the mystery behind the cloth?
Of course you must write that down, Elesa. Patricio will read it and not blush. Nor will God. Do you think that He will deny me the Kingdom of Heaven? You have heard only the beginning of my story. God has other reasons to deny me, my dear.
Pick up the pen, Elesa. Did you make certain to bring enough nibs and bottles of ink, as I had asked? May I remind you that an arrangement is an arrangement. We are too far on the Irish Sea for you to change your mind now.
I will speak slower. You look out of breath already. It is important that you write down every word. Patricio, I know, will want to find me one day, and I want him to know where to begin.
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Product details
Publisher : Viking; 1st Edition (September 3, 2019)
Language : English
Hardcover : 304 pages
ISBN-10 : 0735221014
ISBN-13 : 978-0735221017
Item Weight : 1.95 pounds
Dimensions : 5.81 x 0.99 x 8.53 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #1,283,115 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#4,199 in Biographical Historical Fiction
#4,619 in Biographical Fiction (Books)
#63,997 in Women's Literature & Fiction
Customer Reviews: 4.3 out of 5 stars 37 ratings
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Monique Truong
Born in Saigon, South Vietnam, Monique Truong came to the U.S. as a refugee in 1975. She is a writer based now in Brooklyn. Her novels are The Sweetest Fruits (Viking Books, 2019), Bitter in the Mouth (Random House, 2010), and The Book of Salt (Houghton Mifflin, 2003). She is also an essayist and librettist, working in collaboration with the composer Joan La Barbara.
A Guggenheim Fellow, U.S.-Japan Creative Artists Fellow in Tokyo, Visiting Writer at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, and Princeton University’s Hodder Fellow, she was most recently the Sidney Harman Writer-in-Residence at Baruch College in New York City. Truong received her BA in Literature from Yale University and her JD from Columbia Law School. Visit her at www.monique-truong.com
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Lori Eshleman
5.0 out of 5 stars Not so much Hearn who comes to life, but the women who tell the story
Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2020
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The name Lafcadio Hearn may be familiar to most of us through his books of Japanese tales. Author Monique Truong gives us a sideways view of Hearn’s life, told through the eyes of the women who loved him. From his unworldly and unstable Greek mother, Rosa, who is swept off her feet by a dashing Irish officer on the island of Lefkáda. To his first wife, Alethea, a cook and former slave who encounters him in a boarding house in Cincinnati, Ohio. And his second wife, Koizumi Setsu, who meets him when he arrives in Japan as an English teacher. Each woman sees only a portion of his life, each in a vastly different setting. Each tries to make sense of what they know of him. Alethea, pleased to become the mistress of her own house, cooks and cares for him -- and is privy to his preference for fine white underwear, and his niggling criticisms of her cooking – his liking for bread over biscuits, for beef over pork. She listens and comments as he reads his stories published in the newspaper, stating “I was his witness” (125) and noting how his stories changed when they were published. As his mother abandoned him, Hearn ultimately abandons Alethea, in dawning awareness of having crossed a forbidden boundary.
Setsu, too, cares for him, raises his children, and collaborates with him, by telling him Japanese tales and serving as his guide to remote villages that regard this foreign man with suspicion. Like Alethea, Setsu’s narrative is filtered through her sense of living in a compromised position in Japanese society, as the daughter of an impoverished former samurai family who has few choices. Like a plant that bends toward the sunlight, her every aim is to create a pleasing life for Hearn; yet she is subtly attentive to the cultural strangeness of his tastes and speech. The Japanese words Hearn learned, in part through her, “never found their rightful order” (212) and made him sound like “A drunk lady poet” (212)! Through her narrative, we see her gradual realization that Hearn has not only borrowed his Japanese tales, but has altered them in ways that suit his flair for a good story, which to her holds the scent of betrayal. Even more, he has written her out of his stories, and erased her role as guide and interpreter and sometime rescuer. Through her “second telling” of their life, Setsu lays certain truths bare: “What was once fact---because you alone claimed it to be—can lose its lacquer, chip and blister over time…What was love can be read as mere proximity” (281). Lafcadio Hearn moves chameleon-like through the lives of these women and the countries they inhabit, absorbing and reshaping their stories and becoming famous in the process. In the end it is not so much Hearn who comes to life in the pages of this novel, but the women who tell the story. - Author of Pachacuti: World Overturned
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MT57
3.0 out of 5 stars Felt like a writers’ workshop exercise
Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2019
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Overall the book was a mildly pleasant set of three barely connected accounts of the lives of three 19th century women.
The first of these is an illiterate woman of child-bearing age on a Greek island who happened to be the mother of Lafcadio Hearn, who nominally ties the three women together and lived a remarkably interesting life on three continents. This part was quite dull, and Hearn, being a baby or young child throughout it, was barely a presence. Most of this section, the narrator is complaining about how difficult her life has been. I almost stopped reading entirely but plowed on in hope the other two accounts would be more worthy of reading time.
The second account is that of an African-American cook in Cincinnati Ohio, to whom Hearn was married, or with whom he had a common-law marriage, for a time. As in the first part, the account is told in the first person and concentrates on the narrator, not on Hearn, who remains a minor character. Around page 110, there was a poignant passage that was the first time I felt I caught a glimpse of Hearn as a character.
In the final part, the narrator is Hearn’s final wife, who is literate, and Japanese, and this section finally gives the reader a meaningful portrayal of Hearn in addition to herself.
At the end, there is an author’s note that conveys her passion for telling Hearn’s story in a novel, which was just odd, given how little of the book talks about him.
The book felt mostly like an exercise one might be assigned in a workshop to practice writing about people different from yourself. The connection among the three sections was negligible. The Hearn in each may as well have been three different people. It was not a bad book - the last two sections are pleasant enough to read in and of themselves. It was just an odd, and to me unsuccessful, experiment in writing “about” Hearn through the accounts of these three women, the first two of whom don’t seem to have gotten the memo.
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Galileo
5.0 out of 5 stars Love novels about travelers to different cultures
Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2020
Verified Purchase
Because I had no idea this was based on the real life of a 19th century writer, I just kept thinking Monica Truong's imagination was boundless. I mean who'd believe someone would start life on a tiny Greek island (belonging to Venice), get abandoned by his mother in Ireland, marry a former US slave, and then start life anew with a samurai's daughter in Japan? And YES, the stories are really about the women (Greek/Venetian, African-American, Japanese) who put up with his (or his father's) strange ways and did not hold the weirdness against the men. Entrancing, well-written, flawless.
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kathleen g
TOP 500 REVIEWER
5.0 out of 5 stars fascinating women
Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2019
If you, like me, had not previously heard of Lafcadio Hearn, that's ok. He lived an amazing life but this is about the women in his life, who are, in many ways, even more interesting. Hearn's mother, Rosa, was a Greek woman who defied her family to marry an Irishman. That didn't work out but her voice is strong and interesting. Hearn made his way to the US where he married Alethea (Mattie), an African American woman in 1872. She was born a slave but by the time he met her, she was working as a cook. A radical marriage for that place and time. Mattie's story alone would have made this fascinating but then Hearn leaves for Japan where he meets and marries Setsu in 1891. She's the daughter of a samurai and, in the rigid society of the time, they marry. Hearn is a wanderer and, if he seems in this novel to be a rotter, know that real life he had an amazing amount of abandonment in his early life. That's not an excuse but any means but it sort of explains some of his behavior. Fans of novels about the women behind more famous men get a real treat in this one because not only are there three sympathetic characters, readers who delve a bit more into his life will be rewarded as well. Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC. Interesting, informative, and well written.
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