Unsettled Spirits
This week we take a look at Wandering Souls by Cecile Pin – a book that was on my radar but wasn’t on my list for 2024 until I saw a review online which made me want to drop everything and read this (story of my life!). This one was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for fiction in 2023. Wandering Souls is Pin’s debut novel, which always makes me excited for what is to come.
In Vietnamese folklore, there's a belief that if someone dies away from home, their soul will become unsettled and unable to move on to the afterlife. Instead, they will be condemned to wander the earth as a restless ghost, perpetually hungry and cold, without the peace needed for closure. This superstition serves as the foundation for Cecile Pin's debut novel, Wandering Souls.
In 1978, three years after the fall of Saigon, a Vietnamese teenager named Anh prepares to flee Vietnam with two of her six younger siblings. Their plan is to sail by boat to Hong Kong, where they will wait for the rest of their family before relocating to the United States together. Anh, along with her brothers Minh and Thanh, successfully arrive in Hong Kong, but their wait for the rest of their family extends longer than anticipated. Set against the backdrop of the Vietnamese migration following the Vietnam War, this novel offers a compelling portrayal of the struggles and triumphs of a refugee family as they navigate their new lives in the West. Ultimately, this is a book about displacement, loss, resilience, and the power of familial bonds.
I feel like my reviews are saying the same things – the writing in this is beautiful. The character development is nuanced and brilliant. These characters are deeply human, and although the refugee experience may not be a real one for many of us, the development of these characters makes the experience relatable.
Anh, the eldest sister and protagonist, emerges as a pillar of strength and resilience, shouldering the responsibility of her younger siblings while grappling with her own grief and guilt. Thanh and Minh, the younger brothers, each deal with their own demons, provide a counterbalance to Anh's steadfastness, illustrating the varied ways in which trauma can manifest and be processed. In this book, we experience loss, the difficulties of starting over, the necessity of assimilation, the struggles of identity.
This book also has the shifting timelines, and we go back and forward through time, adding to the story and to the character development. This novel also touches on the broader socio-political context of the Vietnamese migration, providing insights into the historical and cultural forces that shape the characters' lives. The novel also delves into the political climate of the UK during that era, highlighting Margaret Thatcher’s xenophobic attitudes towards Vietnamese refugees, which demonstrate the conservative politics of the 1980s. Reading about this in 2024 feels jarring, yet it prompts reflection on the current racist remarks from some of our politicians, making me wonder how this rhetoric persists among today's leaders?!
I digress.. I don’t want to write too much more about the plot because I don’t want to spoil it. However, I will say that this book and this writing is like nothing I have read before – there are some literary features that I think will mean this book is studied in school and universities. (Don’t let this put you off – this isn’t a hard to read literary novel). These literary techniques give the book an eerie feeling to it, and the Vietnamese folklore about the wandering ghosts comes into play. Intrigued? Give this one a read, because life is too short to read bad books.