Monique Truong crafts narratives that delve into the complexities of identity and historical experience, often centering on the Vietnamese diaspora. Her works are celebrated for their rich prose and insightful exploration of themes such as displacement, memory, and the search for belonging. Through her literary endeavors, Truong offers a distinct perspective on the intersections of culture and personal journeys. Her writing stands as a significant contribution to contemporary literature, illuminating the nuances of human existence and the power of storytelling.
In The Sweetest Fruits, three women tell the story of their time with Lafcadio Hearn, a globetrotting writer best known for his books about Meiji-era Japan. 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.
From Monique Truong, winner of the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature and author of The Sweetest Fruits, a brilliant, virtuosic novel about a young woman’s search for identity and the true meaning of family “What I know about you, little girl, would break you in two” are the prophetic last words that Linda Hammerick’s grandmother says to her. Growing up in small-town North Carolina in the 1970s and ’80s, Linda already knows that she is profoundly different from everyone else, including the members of her own family. She can “taste” words. In this and in other ways, her body is a mystery to her. Linda’s awkward girlhood is nonetheless enlivened and emboldened by her dancing great-uncle Harper, and Kelly, her letter-writing best friend. Linda makes her way north to college and then to New York City, trying her best to leave her past behind her like “a pair of shoes that no longer fit.” But when a family tragedy compels her to return home, Linda uncovers the startling secrets of her past. Monique Truong’s acclaimed novel questions our assumptions about what it means to be a family and to be a friend, to be foreign and to be familiar, to be connected to and disconnected from our bodies, our histories, ourselves.
Considering whether he will accompany his employers, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, to America, a personal cook remembers his youth in French-colonial Vietnam, his years as a galley hand at sea, and his days cooking for the doyennes of the Lost Generation. Reader's Guide available. Reprint.