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"Living things prefer to go on living."
From THE COFFIN TREE by Wendy Law-Yone, 1983.
Law-Yone opens her 1983 debut novel with the death of the protagonist's grandmother, who then goes on to 'prowl the house' as a specter for months after her death. Broad brushstrokes of a a childhood in northern Burma, an itinerant father with another family, whimsical twin aunts, and the monsoons that mark time.
The past is diaphanous, not fully formed. It only truly comes into precision as our main character and her half-brother are whisked out of the Burma during the 1962 coup d'état, quickly forced to start a new life with very little in a different country.
The book was a challenge. Just when I felt I was getting into the story, there was a dramatic shift of scene of point-of-view. Part One was great - the childhood, the relationship with her brother who has a mental illness... I was there for it and invested. Part Two was where it started to lose me. I often appreciate a novel that throws me into the deep end, but this one gave no life line, no shimmer in the distance, and seemed so discordant from what was established in Part One earlier.
Still, I'm interested in what Law-Yone has to say, and many of her later books have been well-received. My plan is to read her memoir next - GOLDEN PARASOL: A Daughter's Memoir of Burma.
Will a nonfiction account shed light on the fiction? We'll see.
From THE COFFIN TREE by Wendy Law-Yone, 1983.
Law-Yone opens her 1983 debut novel with the death of the protagonist's grandmother, who then goes on to 'prowl the house' as a specter for months after her death. Broad brushstrokes of a a childhood in northern Burma, an itinerant father with another family, whimsical twin aunts, and the monsoons that mark time.
The past is diaphanous, not fully formed. It only truly comes into precision as our main character and her half-brother are whisked out of the Burma during the 1962 coup d'état, quickly forced to start a new life with very little in a different country.
The book was a challenge. Just when I felt I was getting into the story, there was a dramatic shift of scene of point-of-view. Part One was great - the childhood, the relationship with her brother who has a mental illness... I was there for it and invested. Part Two was where it started to lose me. I often appreciate a novel that throws me into the deep end, but this one gave no life line, no shimmer in the distance, and seemed so discordant from what was established in Part One earlier.
Still, I'm interested in what Law-Yone has to say, and many of her later books have been well-received. My plan is to read her memoir next - GOLDEN PARASOL: A Daughter's Memoir of Burma.
Will a nonfiction account shed light on the fiction? We'll see.
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