I listened to Shelagh Rogers interviewing the Laotian author of these 14 short stories on CBC’s The Next Chapter, and decided to borrow it from the library. Several of the stories were published previously, and this collection garnered the author, now living in Toronto, the 2020 Scotiabank Giller prize for fiction.
The stories are narrated in limpid prose by various young offspring of Laotian immigrants to an unspecified North American city at an unspecified time. There are valiant attempts at character development, but the stories are generally too short for me to be able to develop an emotional bond with or a picture of the characters. The extensive unnecessary use of very foul language and obsession with crude sexual encounters totally devoid of emotion did not thrill this old curmudgeon.
The description of the very limited opportunities for the immigrant family members and the cultural and language barriers they face is probably a very realistic reflection of real difficulties of most immigrants.
The best feature of this book is its brevity. (I got confused about the pagination in the CloudLibrary ebook edition, but it can easily be read in six hours or less.) It may have been prudent and politically correct for the judges choosing the Giller to pick a book by a female disadvantaged immigrant, but if they are trying to encourage Canadians to read important or entertaining Canadian literature, this was a poor choice. I simply cannot recommend it.
The Passionate Reader 