After reading and reviewing two crime
novels from international writers, I now come to my first non-crime book for
the year. The book is ‘Fishing for Tigers’ by Australian writer Emily Macguire.
The story is about Mischa, an Australian
woman in her mid-thirties who has been living in Hanoi for six years after
fleeing a violent marriage. Mischa sees herself as a good person. Her Sunday
catch ups with one of her ex pat friends consists of the friend confessing and
de-briefing on her week’s events, while Mischa rarely contributes, believing
she has nothing to feel guilty about.
Even though Mischa feels invisible as an
older Western woman in a city where both local and expat men prefer young
Vietnamese women, she relishes not having to explain herself to anyone.
Into this comfortable existence comes Cal,
the eighteen year old Vietnamese-Australian son of Mischa’s Australian boss,
Matthew. This is Cal’s first trip to the country that his grandparents fled with
his mother and her sisters during the Vietnamese War. Cal’s experiences of
Hanoi and of the ex pats, and his subsequent covert relationship with Mischa
shakes Mischa’s view of herself. His need to provoke a true emotional response from
her pushes her to re-examine her life and emotional disconnectedness.
I was keen to read this as I lived in Hanoi
with my partner and small child in the mid-2000s. I think this experience and
my many futile attempts to capture Hanoi in words had me on edge in the initial
stages of the book. I felt the descriptions of Hanoi and of Misha’s life
skimmed the surface and didn’t seem to come from a person who supposedly had
lived there for six years. To me it sounded like someone who’d been there for a
few months. I know much of this dissatisfaction came from my own writing
failures and knowing how hard it is to scratch the surface of Vietnamese life.
Much of it is unknowable and you end up with your own inadequate Western
interpretation. Once I got past this initial stage and the relationship between
Cal and Mischa took off, I relaxed and got into it.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and Emily
Macguire’s writing is a joy to read. Her portrayal of Cal is particularly
piercing. He is self-righteous and prickly, a typical eighteen year old, and
his observations of the ex pat community are excoriating and, from my
experiences, spot on. He struggles to reconcile his mother’s dislike of Vietnam
and his grandfather’s silence with the city he is visiting – the city his
father abandoned his family to live in.
‘Fishing with Tigers’ is a thoughtful and
thoroughly enjoyable read.
Thanks for sharing your AWW review - this title is proving popular!
ReplyDeleteShelleyrae @ Book'd Out