Daughters of the River Huong by Vietnam-born, Houston-based writer Uyen Nicole Duong is a richly woven tapestry of family, country, conflict, and redemption. A saga spanning four generations of Vietnamese women, we discover lives inextricably tied to their country’s struggle for independence. Narrated by the teenaged Simone, a girl who flaunts convention and enters into a forbidden relationship of love and sensuality, readers are drawn to the lives of four of Simone’s ancestors, from Huyen Phi, the Mystique Concubine from the extinct Kingdom of Champa, to Ginseng, the Mystique Concubine’s second daughter and a heroine of the Vietnamese Revolution. Duong tells a tumultuous story of power and lust that transports us from the Violet City of Hue to the teeming streets of a Saigon at war, from the affluence of Paris’s St. Germain des Pres to Manhattan. Love, war, capitalism, revolution—this novel delivers a chronicle of history as fascinating as it is memorable. About the Author Vietnam-born Uyen Nicole Duong arrived in the United States at the age of sixteen, a political refugee from a country torn apart by war. She received a Bachelor of Science in Communication and Journalism from Southern Illinois University, a law degree from the University of Houston, and the advanced LLM degree from Harvard. She was also trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena. She has been a journalist, public education administrator, attorney, law professor, and a self-taught painter whose work focuses on l’Art Brut. The author resides in Houston, Texas.

Uyen Nicole Duong: I wanted to capture the beauty of my home culture, and the sorrow of its women in the form of literary fiction.

Question: How did you come to write the book?

Uyen Nicole Duong: Iâ??m not sure anyone--even the writer--can fully understand all the sources for a writerâ??s creative energy, but in the case of this book I know that several themes at work for me were the city of Hue, the River Huong, and the native people from Champa.

My mother, who is from Hue, has played an important part in my creative life since childhood. All Vietnam veterans who served in Vietnam, I imagine, would remember Hue and the battle there during the TET offensive in 1968. Hue was an imperial city, and represented the past glory of the independent Vietnam before French colonialism. Control of Hue was very important and one of the reasons why the battle in 1968 was so intense. I know many American veterans of the Vietnam War remember Hue. One time at a social gathering at a filmmakerâ??s home in California, I was introduced to a Vietnam vet and when he found out my mother came from Hue, all he wanted to talk about was the battle for the imperial city. In a way, this made me sad that my mother's hometown was associated only with the bloodshed of war in the minds of the American public. For that reason, I want to bring Hue and its motif into my novel.

The River Huong, commonly known among tourists as the Perfume River, is the landmark of Hue. It is associated with the beautiful and romantic women of Vietnam. It also has historic significance independent from the famous battle. One of the last Vietnamese monarchs, together with two mandarin strategists, plotted a revolt against the French protectorate government during his boat trips on the Perfume River. Of course, it was unsuccessful and the young king was exiled. Hue and its River Huong are also associated with the past kingdom of Champa, annexed into Vietnam as of the 15th century. I have always been interested in the indigenous peoples of Southeast Asia, including the Champa heritage. In 1991, a Vietnamese friend of mine, a psychologist who had studied Carl Jung, told me I looked more like a Cham woman than a Vietnamese. This gave me the idea to pursue a creative urge. I conceived the novel during the same year.

I call my Lâ??Art Brut, "Subconscious Painting," because quite often, I start out not knowing what kind of images I want to create. I usually spend the first 20 minutes experimenting freely with strokes and colors, with no elaborate preparation or concentration. Quite often, after about 20 minutes of exploration, I begin to see a theme or an object emerge on the surface--it could be something that I have seen before, maybe just a vague recollection. I then focus on refining and developing that object or theme, or use my imagination to sketch a scene. Hence, many of my paintings are totally unplanned.

After I finished my first novel, Daughters of the River Huong, I found myself being drawn toward images that seemed to match the scenes I had imagined for my novel, but this recognition only came either after I had finished the artworks, or half way through the creative process. So, I decided to name these pieces after the motifs and characters of my novel--that was conscious. The beginning of the painting process was still very much subconscious.

In the subconscious process, I often found that when the images finally emerged, many times, very strangely, the line between East and West became blurred or the images of East and West were combined in my artworks, yet I could not explain why or how. I have to conclude that the subconscious mind works in incomprehensible ways. For example, in "the two faces of Eve the Vietnamese dancer," the image of a Vietnamese woman emerged, but somehow I could not resist the urge to have her wear a flamenco skirt, and no longer the traditional Vietnamese ao dai. --Uyen Nicole Duong

Click on thumbnails for larger images

The two faces of Eve the Vietnamese dancer	Couturier woman and dresses	The mystique concubine

Three magnolias, two sisters, and one onlooker	Three-magnolias, two sisters and one onlooker	The two sisters of the River Huong, turning toward the future and reminiscing the past

1. The Marriage and Christopher

(New York City, 1985)

I turned the key and opened the door to the apartment that was my home. Christopher must have sent Lucinda home for the weekend. The laquered clock chimed six thirty as I closed the apartment door behind me, my heels clicking and pivoting on the hardwood.... view entire excerpt...

Recommended to book clubs by 0 of 0 members.