This week’s #FridayReads is an extraordinary debut, The Frangipani Hotel.
Based on traditional Vietnamese folk tales told to the author by her grandmother, these fantastical, chilling, and thoroughly contemporary stories are a boldly original exploration of Vietnamese culture, addressing both the immigrant experience and the lives of those who remained behind. Lurking in the background of them all is a larger ghost—that of the Vietnam War, whose legacy continues to haunt us.
With tremendous depth and range, Kupersmith’s stories transcend their genre to make a wholly original statement about the postwar experience.
Advance Praise:
“Surgically precise and feverishly imaginative.”
—Téa Obreht, author of The Tiger’s Wife
“[A] mature-beyond-her-years debut.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“The stories shimmer with life . . . [and] mark Kupersmith, who is in her early twenties, as one to watch.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)