A Mother’s Tale and Other Stories by Khanh Ha
Publisher: C&R Press (October 15, 2021)
Category: Linked Short Stories, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction
Tour dates: October 11-November 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-1949540239
Available in Print and ebook, 150 pages
Description Mother’s Tale and Other Stories by Khanh Ha
A Mother’s Tale is a tale of salvaging one’s soul from received and inherited war-related trauma. Within the titular beautiful story of a mother’s love for her son is the cruelty and senselessness of the Vietnam War, the poignant human connection, and a haunting narrative whose set ting and atmosphere appear at times otherworldly through their land scape and inhabitants. Captured in the vivid descriptions of Vietnam’s country and culture are a host of characters, tortured and maimed and generous and still empathetic despite many obstacles, including a culture wrecked by losses. Somewhere in this chaos readers will find a tender link between the present-day survivors and those already gone. Rich and yet buoyant with a vision-like quality, this collection shares a common theme of love and loneliness, longing and compassion, where beauty is discovered in the moments of brutality, and agony is felt in ecstasy.Excerpt Mother’s Tale and Other Stories by Khanh Ha
Dear Mamma, I’m writing to you from our base camp. It was once a French fort during the Indochina War. From the rear of the base looking west I can see the U Minh forest beyond the perimeter of barbed wire. At first light the leaves of the forest are bright green and there are trees covered in white flowers, but in the heat haze of the day the leaves turn a dusty green and the flowers wither and fall in the monsoon rain.
Past the base’s entrance I can see the little Viet town. A red-dirt road runs through the middle of it and the spreading crown of a chinaberry shades the refreshment shack. We call this little town “Blind Colony,” Mama. It’s the same age as the base built a few years ago. Like parasitic climbers on old tree trunks. And the sight of our star-painted trucks is as familiar as the sight of the old Lambretta minibus that comes chugging in every day at daybreak, unloading bags of fresh onions in front of the refreshment store, and returning before sunset to collect them onions now neatly diced.
They must have good soil somewhere to grow those onions, for each bulb is big and smooth and shiny, and those bulbs could stay fresh for a few months. You know why, Mama? After they are harvested and dried, those who grow them preserve them in DDT and gypsum powder so fungi and onion flies and eelworms would keep off them. Otherwise, the onions would rot in a week.
Now the Viet women would receive bags of them at first light and all day long slave dicing up them onions. At day’s end, eyes teary and red when their bags are filled with diced onions, they must have wiped their eyes a hundred times. Before long, their eyesight is affected by the DDT and eventually they go blind. Beyond the town is the Trem River. That’s what the Viets call it.
We follow that river north on our patrols. Sometimes we stay out for days on end guarding the villages that lay hidden in the banana and bamboo groves along the river. There’s a Catholic village that lies beyond the riverbank, deep in the forest. On quiet evenings, if you stand amongst the huts, you can hear the sound of waves coming from the western sea. We protect that Catholic village against the enemy.
The villagers are northerners who escaped the communist terror in 1954 when Vietnam was divided into North and South. The mammas and grandmas bake dumplings and steamed buns and we eat them and thank God that we don’t have to eat our ham and lima beans. We give them our C-ration cans in return.
The village militia have lookouts in the forest and along the river, and they communicate with one another using Morse code through their hand-held radios. They have M1 Garand and carbine rifles. We gave them M-16 rifles and mortars. One night their scouts spotted the Viet Cong’s movement toward their village and sent their men the coordinates through Morse code. They fired their mortars. They got the Viet Cong just as they were crossing the river.
When it was over, canteens, rubber shoes and bodies floated on the water. In the morning the river had carried away the blood, but the mud along the riverbank was soaked red and the fish were fighting one another for the human flesh caught between the battered-looking paling. I don’t know these people. I don’t know their language. I don’t know what they think. They smell strange. Talk strange, like chipmunks.
They always smile, Mama. They smile as we leave a village and then one of our men lost his foot in the paddy. In this vill I saw these old hags with blackened teeth and bloody mouths. You should see them, Mama. They have snaggleteeth and they keep spitting red spit all over the place. One of my men said to me, Have you heard of betel nut? I said no. He said back home we chew Skoal, Red Man, here they chew betel nuts. I said No thanks. They look repugnant to me.
I saw bomb shelters in their huts. They hide children in there. This old hag sat in the bunker with two tiny kids. Just plain naked. Her lips were swollen red from chewing betel nuts, and she was cracking lice from the kids’ hair with her teeth. You can hear the lice pop. There was a rice pot on the dirt floor. Cooked over wood fire. Another pot of greens boiled in water. Ian Vaughn, our point man, gave her a can of ham. She just looked at him.
You often see that same look on their dumb-eyed buffalos. So he left it on the floor by the rice pot. We can’t talk to them, Mama. We don’t know how. The four words we know when we command them to do what we ask are di di, that’s go away, and dung lai, that’s halt! If they don’t, we’ll shoot. Before we entered this vill, we saw someone slinking away in the woods. Ian called dung lai! The figure kept running so Ian opened up. The figure hit the ground. We came up and found a ten-year-old boy.
Review Mother’s Tale and Other Stories by Khanh Ha
Guest Review by Katy An intimate and tragic collection of short stories from acclaimed author Khanh Ha, 'A Mother's Tale and Other Stories,' showcases slices of life from all over Vietnam.
“Heartbreak Grass,” is the story of a young man, freshly drafted into the Vietnam war, who befriends a quadruple amputee whom he calls Uncle Chung. As Uncle Chung suffers through indignities from his cheating wife's shoddy care, the young man faces his uncertain future as a soldier, and faces the reality that he may end up like Uncle Chung.
'The American Prisoner,' is about a Vietnamese soldier who befriends an American prisoner of war. Over the course of the friendship, the two learn much about each other and the Vietnamese soldier begins trying to help the American survive.
The titular story, 'A Mother's Tale,' is about a mother who lost her son during the war and who travels to Vietnam to find and recover his body.
These and other stories make up an incredibly touching and beautiful collection that pulls readers in from the beginning. Ha's writing is something to be experienced. From his usage of setting to his deep, introspective look at his characters, every beat of 'A Mother's Tale and Other Stories' was perfect.
Both the heart and the soul of Vietnam are represented by Ha in this collection and the effect is a look at the perspectives that most American's do not often get to see. The trauma inflicted during the Vietnam war affected an entire generation of people from both countries involved and having stories that stem, not just from the duration of the war, but from years after it ended, really provides valuable insight into the lives of the Vietnamese people.
It is impossible to read this collection without being impacted by the stories. This is a book that will stay with you forever.
Khanh Ha is the author of Flesh, The Demon Who Peddled Longing, and Mrs. Rossi’s Dream. He is a seven-time Pushcart nominee, finalist for the Mary McCarthy Prize, Many Voices Project, Prairie Schooner Book Prize, and The University of New Orleans Press Lab Prize. He is the recipient of the Sand Hills Prize for Best Fiction, the Robert Watson Literary Prize in Fiction, and the Orison Anthology Award for Fiction. Mrs. Rossi’s Dream, was named Best New Book by Booklist and a 2019 Foreword Reviews INDIES Silver Winner and Bronze Winner. A Mother’s Tale & Other Stories has already won the C&R Press Fiction Prize.
Website: http://www.authorkhanhha.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KhanhHa69784776
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorkhanhha
About Khanh Ha
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