PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewTruong’s delicate, impressionistic tale is broken into thirds, with each section narrated by a woman who at one time loved the man history will remember as Lafcadio Hearn, the 19th-century author who was the first Westerner to write about a newly opened Japan. At first, this structure seems disjointed, but soon it becomes clear that the interplay of these voices will carry the story. As she did in her previous novel...Truong is exploring personal memory in all its creative and contradictory subjectivity ... Truong’s novel is propelled not by action but by the retrospective piecing together that happens once a relationship is over. Spurred by nostalgia, regret, longing and anger, each woman examines her memories. The truth becomes murky as the history of this man they have all loved is subjectively recorded for posterity. As Setsu observes, \'to tell another’s story is to bring him to life,\' but here it’s the women who achieve that feat rather than the man who connected them.
