New Review from Antoine Hudon

Hi Mister Siminoe,
I am a Quebecker living in a small village of Lower Saint-Lawrence and a long-time lover of Thailand. English in not my first language but I read it a lot.
I particularly read everything I can about Thailand. On my recent visit there I purchased over 60 books. Yours is the first of the lot I have read. Since you welcome critics, I take the opportunity to give you my feeling about your book.
I can only give you my point of view as a reader, one reader, one that loves Thailand and has written about it too (‘Daughter of Isaan’, my novel, was also published by Bkk Books last year), but I am only me and I am not objective. I look at your book the way I think reviewers looked at mine when I presented them the ms to criticize.
I most appreciated the fact that your novel shows a lot of understanding of Thai culture and society. The hints about Thai life are always well brought along. I would have had more of that even if we understand that they sometimes reflect a character’s particular point of view!
Another good point, the dialogues are always pertinent, well crafted and moving the action forward.
I understand this is an introspective novel, and a first person novel too (and I feel it couldn’t have been otherwise). Although there is a bit too much introspection for my taste, the subjectivity of the story, in that case, is a passport and a justification for it.
The part of reminiscence is overwhelming. Usually, a reader is more interested in what is currently happening than in long past events, so this has to be presented in small servings. Also, I fell there is too much of it, or presented with too many details. In fact, it seems unlikely that a person could remember the minutiae of facts or conversations years past. One particular recollection seems to me superfluous: the scene on p. 131-134. In the same line of thought, I don’t see where the father’s philosophy about God’s plan leads us since it’s obviously of no use to Duke and he doesn’t seem eager to confront it with his own experience (unless I missed actual references to it).
Finally, one thing that puts me off in any book, and in yours in some occasions, is the references to religions metaphors, particularly those metaphors inherited from the Bible. This could be interpreted as a lack of sensibility for non-religious people, as a lack of culture (as if one has ever read only one book in his life) or as an unconscious act of proselytism.
Overall, this is an instructive book, sometimes funny, sometimes moving, and it stands towards the top of the bunch I’ve read about Thailand.