Sid and Lily Norell together with their children, Lauren and Jody, leave America in 1957 for Taiwan where Sid is to take up a diplomatic post with the American Embassy in Taipei. Their story is told in a first person account by Lauren, interspersed with Lily’s letters back home to her friends, Rose and Esther, which Esther has kept and gives to Lauren after Lily’s death, many years later.
This enchanting, engrossing novel follows Lily’s progression from the comforts of Bethesda and her many friends there to life as an expat in ‘the Orient’, as she would always refer to Asia. Although initially counting the months until they could return home, Lily gradually came to realise that Sid’s intention was to become a career diplomat and she began to find herself suited to her new role.
Lauren’s recollections on reading the letters, while appreciating Lily’s good works and socialising skills, are judgmental from the point of view of a child who was never able to hold her mother’s attention for long. It was tremendously interesting to read of the impact of expat life on the parents and, separately, on the children.
This book is filled with so much: transplanting a family from one life to a completely different other; hints of the CIA’s involvement in Asian affairs; the Vietnam war, refugees, aid workers and soldiers suffering from the previously unnamed post traumatic stress disorder.
Lily’s letters and Lauren’s narration reveal as much about themselves and their world as could be told in a third person account. This is, simply, a brilliant book!
Published by Unsolicited Press
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