Based on traditional Vietnamese folktales, the nine stories in Violet Kupersmith's The Frangipani Hotel take the reader through matters fantastic, chilling and ghostly. There are many hauntings recounted in the stories, most particularly the haunting hangover of the Vietnam War and the ways it has affected so many people.
In "Boat Story," a young girl wants her grandmother to tell her about escaping in an open boat for a school assignment. The girl wants the hard facts, the rigors of the crossing, maybe a storm at sea--and her grandmother weaves a tale of a man walking on water (a dead man at that) and how she and her husband got away from him. Her granddaughter says: "But I want the real story! Why can't you tell me how you escaped?" Grandmother's response sets the tone for the rest of the stories: "It's simple, child: Did we ever really escape?"
In "Turning Back," an aimless Vietnamese-American girl, Phuong, finds an old Vietnamese man, stark naked, behind the convenience store where she works as a clerk in Houston. She further discovers, to her horror, that he can turn into a giant python, then back into a man--over and over again. Naked or scaly, he recounts to Phuong bits and pieces of what it's like to be a snake: "How to taste smell, how to taste heat, seeing the world in motion, not in colors. The feeling of coiling, of lengthening, of squeezing."
"Descending Dragon" finds Ms. Nguyen having her daily phone conversation with her daughter when she hallucinates a tank in her bedroom, the same tank she saw 40 years ago, when it was real. When her daughter, Lam, talks again, the tank disappears. Ms. Nguyen has begun her litany of complaints, as usual; in the middle of her recitation, her daughter interrupts, saying, "I can't fly down for Lunar New Year as we planned." Ms. Nguyen responds: "Did you know, my feet are always cold now?" Lam tells her that she should wear the wool socks she sent, and Ms. Nguyen says that they are very slippery. This perfect foreshadowing sets up an ending that is just as Ms. Nguyen would wish it to be.
Each of the stories is replete with characters both fabulous and ordinary, stories out of this world and firmly rooted in it. Each is meticulously told by a storyteller talented and wise beyond her years. --Valerie Ryan
Shelf Talker: Violet Kupersmith's stories contain clashes between the real world and the spirit world, with a cast of diverse characters, many fantastical.