This is one of the best debut novels I’ve ever read. Tracey Lien was born and raised in Cabramatta. She earned her MFA (the terminal professional fine arts degree) at the University of Kansas and was previously a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. She now lives in Brooklyn.
I don’t regard the following paragraph as a plot spoiler since, as I’ll explain, I think the plot merely provides context for the novel’s objective.
The principal character is Ky Tran who, like the author, is a journalist and the daughter of Vietnamese refugees. Her teenage brother Denny is beaten to death in a packed restaurant in front of dozens of witnesses on the night of his Year 12 formal, yet everyone claims they saw nothing. Their parents have refused an autopsy, and maintain their grief in silence. Ky is determined to uncover the truth. In her quest, Ky interviews a succession of reluctant witnesses, including a schoolteacher, restaurant staff and, ultimately, her childhood best friend, from whom she painfully extracts the truth.
Perhaps for marketing purposes, the book is often portrayed as a detective story. But I found it was really about society in Cabramatta in the 1990s, when heroin addiction was rife in Cabramatta – a fact which explains the silence of many witnesses – and in particular what it felt like to be a Vietnamese immigrant, or the child of immigrants, at that time.
During her search for answers in the novel, Ky struggles against an all-white, largely indifferent police force, which seems to consider her brother’s death an inevitability. Much of Ky’s journey is about grappling with her flawed belief system – the idea that she is lucky to be in Australia, that Vietnamese Australians only have to be ‘good’ and work hard to live successful lives.
To quote the author, “Growing up in Australia as an Asian person, you are told by your parents, by society: ‘You’re so lucky,’. The fact that you’re born here means that you will be given a fair go. [You’re told] you belong, and that Australia really values multiculturalism – look at how lucky you are. But I realised at some point that this wasn’t true, that my citizenship was conditional. If you step out of line, or make anyone feel uncomfortable, suddenly you’re a nuisance, or worse, a threat. I think this idea of luck is almost used to silence people. Like, ‘Be quiet, you’re so lucky. You should be grateful.’ Yet who gets to determine where the gratitude is owed?
“Back then [in the 1990s], they were interviewing teenagers in Cabramatta and asking them, ‘How does it feel to be here?’ It was really confronting to read these teenagers’ points of view… They had accounts of being like stopped and frisked by the police for absolutely no reason other than they were Asian. One of the things I learned was that the teenagers that joined gangs were not lured by drugs. These weren’t like 13-year-olds being like, ‘Oh, yeah, let’s go get high, let’s go inject heroin!’ … they were looking for a sense of community, searching for someone who understood them. Knowing that, I knew this story had to centre relationships, and how these relationships might end up being a slippery slope into a certain type of lifestyle.”
I acclaim Australia as a multi-cultural society. However, I must admit that I have never had a personal relationship with anyone Vietnamese – or indeed with anyone from a culture inherently different from my own. In reading this book, I was not only deeply moved, but I also learnt much. I strongly recommend it.
Tony Barnett
