Connecting with authors is always a treat, and today I’m delighted to invite you to listen in to a recent conversation with Thao Thai. Thao joined us in the Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club to discuss her debut novel Banyan Moon, a juicy family drama that explores what makes a home, the secrets we keep, inheritance and immigrant stories, and so much more. We talk about how this unique story came to be and the story behind the book’s striking cover, and Thao answers a variety of questions from our Book Club members.
In addition, we touch on Thao’s forthcoming rom-com, Adam & Evie’s Matchmaking Tour—which she is releasing under the pen name Nora Nyguen. Thao’s writing is so unique and enjoyable no matter the genre, and I know many readers can’t wait to crack open this new book.
Whether or not you’ve read Banyan Moon, I think you’ll love listening in to today’s spoiler-free conversation, which we’ve lightly edited from the original live Book Club Event. Let us know if you have a title to recommend to readers who loved Banyan Moon, or if there’s a book you’d love to read in Book Club, by sharing a comment below.
Follow along with Thao at her Substack, her website, and on Instagram.
Find your Book People in the Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club
If you loved today’s conversation with Thao Thai, there’s so much more to enjoy. Our Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club hosts monthly talks with authors you love and now includes an archive of over 75 book discussions! Now is a great time to join us in Book Club. Your Book Club membership includes our 2024 Summer Reading Guide and Unboxing book party and if you join now you’ll be just in time to join us for a live author talk with Ada Calhoun, author of Also a Poet. We’d love to have you join us—find out more at modernmrsdarcy.com/club.
[00:00:00] ANNE: Hey readers, I'm Anne Bogel and this is What Should I Read Next?. Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don't get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read.
This week we're talking books and reading with Thao Thai, author of our 2023 minimalist Summer Reading Guide pick Banyan Moon. This conversation initially took place within our Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club community, and I'm happy to share it with everyone today.
Over at Book Club, we have all sorts of events just like this, and right now it's an especially exciting time to join. When you sign up this week, your first month of membership will include our 2024 Summer Reading Guide and Unboxing Book Party, as well as upcoming events like our Author Talk with Ada Calhoun about Also a Poet.
[00:01:10] Our members enjoy these events year-round, along with classes that offer gentle encouragement for your reading life, member meetups, and so much more. You're sure to find your book people in Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club, and we would love to have you join us. Get in on the conversation at modernmrsdarcy.com/club.
Our book club conversations with authors are some of our favorite events in that community. And when we decided to share a recent author talk with you, I immediately thought of our conversation with Thao.
Her stirring debut, Banyan Moon, follows three generations of Vietnamese American women in the wake of the death of their beloved matriarch. Across the generations and in rotating, sometimes very surprising points of view, we see each woman deal with both the burdens she inherited and the secrets she keeps from her daughter out of love, and how these well-intentioned choices caused terrible harm to all.
Thao joined me, our community manager Ginger Horton, and our community administrator Brigid Misselhorn, and a whole bunch of our book club members in this live conversation.
[00:02:11] If this sounds like a juicy summer video, you're not alone. In our chat with Thao, we talk about families and what makes a home, how we navigate the secrets we keep, inheritance and immigrant stories, and much more.
If family dramas aren't your summer reading cup of iced tea, I'm excited to tell you that Thao's forthcoming romcom, Adam & Evie's Matchmaking Tour, which she is releasing under the pen name Nora Nguyen is just a few months away, and might be just what you're looking for.
You'll hear that mentioned briefly today, and I hope this conversation whet your appetite for this fresh and fun story, while sharing insight into what makes Thao's writing so unique and enjoyable, no matter the genre.
Our book club members represent every possible reading taste, so we're always clear that you don't have to read the book to enjoy our conversations in this space. And the same is true for today's episode. Whether or not you've read Banyan Moon, I think you love listening in to today's spoiler-free conversation.
We edited this so we could air it as an audio-only podcast and share it with you, but you may hear references to book club members during the interview. That's because while our members aren't on video during these events, they do participate actively during our chats, asking questions for the author and chatting with our book club hosts and each other. You'll definitely hear that happening today.
[00:03:25] Now let's get to it.
Hello. Hi, everybody. Welcome to book club. Ginger, can I join you on video now?
GINGER HORTON: I can't figure out. You guys, we've been doing this for what, seven years? And I was just messaging. Anne, I cannot mute myself. I don't know what's going on, but hello. I think I was aware that you guys were seeing me, but that wasn't even positive. So that was my typing.
ANNE: What it looks like when we're about ready to bookclub? We are so glad you are here today and we are so delighted and honored to welcome Thao Thai. Hello. Thank you for joining us.
THAO THAI: Hi. It's such an honor to be here. I've been excited about this for months.
ANNE: It is so mutual. I took my notes today. I read this back in February, and I've been looking forward to this conversation ever since. I see some of you all saying it's the best book of the year. We're going to talk all about it and the cover. Oh my gosh, Ms. Thai, I love the images of you with your book doing events, and you often match your cover, and it's so much fun.
[00:04:31] THAO: Can't wait for this conversation. I loved this book. I always love an intergenerational story. So excited for this bright spot to talk about a really great summer read.
ANNE: Me too. And we're going to jump in. All right. Thao, I can't wait to dive into this gorgeous book. But first, we're gonna start a little closer to your home, I think.
Friends, we always ask our authors to tell us about their favorite independent bookstore that we can direct people to, especially because oftentimes, and Thai, you can tell me if this is the case, the local store is the one that guaranteed has the signed copies, or as close to a guarantee as you can get. I was so intrigued by your selection of bookstores. It's been on my list to visit. Would you tell us about your choice?
THAO: Absolutely. So, as a reader, I just love indie bookstores. And I've loved them for a long time because when you go in, you have a sense of curation. Like somebody is choosing these books with you in mind, they're actually readers, they'll tell you all about them. There's something very personal and lovely about that.
[00:05:36] Gramercy Books is just such a special place. If you are in the Central Ohio area, it's a smaller bookstore, but it is really beautifully curated. Every time I go, there's a big wall of books, and it hits everything I want at the moment. That's how I discovered Remarkably Bright Creatures, which was one of my very favorite books, and Tomorrow x 3, which I know all of us love.
The bookstore actually has a separate little anteroom for all the kids' stuff. So you've got these beautiful vibrant children's books, which is great for my daughter. But you've also got toys and games and notebooks.
And then one of the coolest parts about Gramercy is that they butt up right next to a cupcake and coffee shop. So you can get your delicious mini cupcake and then go browse books and then go get more coffee and just ping pong back and forth all day long.
So it is a beautiful place owned by an author and very supportive of local authors. Columbus is a very vibrant writer town. So yeah, go stop by and give them some love.
[00:06:44] ANNE: I saw Amberly in chat say, That is my bookstore. That just went to hosts and panels. Amberly, thank you for opening it up so you can tell us all about the details. Oh, and now y'all are talking about your favorite indies. I need to go hit that up. I'm glad you have that relationship. Do they have signed copies of Banyan Moon?
THAO: Oh, yes, they do. And as soon as they are out, I will hop back down there, get a cupcake, and sign some more.
ANNE: Amazing.
THAO: And they ship nationally as well. So if you're not in the area, you can still get a signed copy.
ANNE: I'm glad to hear it. Now, we don't usually begin by talking about, well, the bookstore or about the cover, but we are going to in this one because you all look at this cover. And Thao, it's been so fun to follow you on social media. And y'all, Thao writes a great newsletter. I just linked to it in our general book talk page this morning, so you can go check it out and subscribe.
But something I've really enjoyed seeing is, one, it's a gorgeous cover. Two, you have often matched the book. I saw when it was a Read with Jenna pick. She matched the book. Y'all, it's not a Banyan, it's a Monstera. But I had to go get my drapey scarf, leafy thing to wear with this book.
[00:07:55] When I first got this book, one of the first reviews I read was by the illustrator who said, "I was commissioned to paint the cover. Of course, I had to read the book to make sure I captured the spirit. Let me tell you my experience with this book," which I thought was so interesting. Would you talk to us about this gorgeous cover?
THAO: Absolutely. So I don't know if I've talked about this before, but in a previous life, I was a book cover designer. So I was the person putting all these together. So I had this hunch that when it came to be my turn to get a book cover of my own, I would be either really helpful or just really, really annoying. You know, it could really go either way, right?
So I put together a 10-page PowerPoint of kind of all the things that I was looking for and all the things I wasn't looking for and I nervously waited by my computer. And then when the email came in within 10 seconds, I opened it up, I saw it, the big letters the way the branches kind of woven between them and that little house in the background. I mean, I couldn't have come up with anything. I couldn't have even dreamed of anything that was as beautiful.
[00:09:08] The cover designer is named Ploy Serpent, and she commissioned Tanya, who lived in my hometown for a while. So she was up close and personal with these banyan trees. So it was a really nice interweaving. And immediately my agent and I wrote back and we said, "No changes. This is great to go. We're all done." It was the easiest process I've ever had.
A funny story about Ploy, my designer, is that she had done this book a few months ago called The Tobacco Wives. It has a very striped, stark cover. And it doesn't actually look very much like Banyan Moon. It looks like Anne might have a copy.
So I passed it in a bookstore and my eye went to it and I said, "I want my cover to look like that. That's what I wanted my cover." And I don't know what it was, maybe the typography, maybe the imagery, something about it really called to me. So I actually took a picture on my phone.
And then later, much after the book cover had been decided, I realized it was the same cover designer. So it was this really lovely bit of kismet.
[00:10:15] That's kind of how the whole publishing process has been. Like for me, it feels like somebody went and sprinkled fairy dust all over these few years and I couldn't be luckier really. And the artist is so beautiful. She does such wonderful work.
My friends actually went together and they got me the painting. They bought it for me and shipped it to my house. So now it's right in front of my office. Every time I go in, not only am I reminded of this book and the miraculous journey, because it was miraculous to get here, but like all the people who supported me as well. I don't know, I'm just so giddy and I'm probably very cheesy about it. But I love it.
ANNE: Oh, we are here for fairy dust branded cheese. That is amazing. Okay. I think it's fascinating that... I see what you mean and also Banyan Moon is completely its own thing. It doesn't look like this. You have to look close to go, Oh, I see the connection. Also, I'm impressed that you knew what I was getting up for. Thank you for that
THAO: Oh, of course. Well, I see all the books behind you. I knew you probably had a copy.
[00:11:16] ANNE: We're reorganizing. It is a mess around here. But it's a book mess and that's the best kind of mess. The fairy dust, but also a ten-page PowerPoint.
THAO: Also that, right.
ANNE: It does sound like you're cupping your hands for the fairy dust to come land.
THAO: A little bit, yes.
ANNE: Having worked as a cover designer, I'm presuming a lot, but I imagine that when you're designing a cover for a book, when you're part of that process, you really want the cover to telegraph to the reader what they're going to expect inside with mood and content and, you know, like an enticement, but one that does give an idea of what they're going to find in the pages. What did you want readers to take away from the cover of Banyan Moon? Like, what was the message that you wanted to project?
THAO: I wanted it to feel like an invitation. So when you're writing a book that is so cemented in place, part of what I really wanted a reader to experience was this idea of being beckoned in. And I think because of the perspective that it uses, where you do see the house in the distance, but it's not necessarily front and center, there's this sense of mystery that makes you want to kind of part the branches and find your way inside.
[00:12:40] So there's something about this that felt like an invitation, but not a super obvious one. Like an invitation for those who are curious enough to brave the brambles, so to speak.
ANNE: I love that description of parting the branches. That is perfect. Thao, tell us a little bit about the inspiration behind this story, to go back to the beginning.
THAO: Yeah, so my story as an author is pretty winding. As I said, I had another career for a while and I thought that this life, this writing life would kind of be shut off for me. You know, I'm almost 40 now and I just kind of said, well, maybe that's just a pipe dream. But then when I became a mother, I started having all of these questions about inheritance and place and what was it that I wanted my daughter to take away from my life? What lessons could I impart and what traumas did I want her to leave behind?
[00:13:44] So when I was thinking about these questions, I was thinking a lot about how different it looks specifically for immigrants women of the diaspora who are recreating themselves in new contexts. And these characters began coming to me. Their voices were so strong and their stories were so tangled and so complicated. I felt a real desire to tell a different story about motherhood than the ones I'd seen before.
I think being a mother in the United States in particular, it can be very hard, it can be very fraught. Support systems are not what they should be. And so a lot of times we as mothers are told that we have to be a certain way, feel a certain way about motherhood when in reality it is all peaks and valleys, right?
There is no moment of the day where you're not feeling 500 things at once and you're not bringing in your own personal context into your dynamic as a mother. And as a daughter too. So these are a lot of the questions I really wanted to explore.
[00:14:48] Then when I was writing this, it was at the tail end of the pandemic. So I was thinking a lot about homes and what it felt like to be trapped with people. Luckily, I was really excited about being with my husband and my daughter for the most part. But there is a sense of claustrophobia that happens when you can't get out of the house. You know, you're stuck there.
A lot of things come to light and you begin talking about the past in a different way. There's a different kind of intensity and the stakes are raised. And so I thought, what if I took these three generations of women, who I saw so clearly, and I put them in this Gothic setting that they couldn't escape from? What might come out of that? What interesting revelations might they have and what arcs could they explore in that space?
ANNE: Thank you for answering some of the questions I didn't even ask. As I'm a little bit older than you, I'm 45, and I have found myself either increasingly drawn to or these days benefiting from all the stories that are about a kind of re-evaluation of one's life after something happens or at a certain point. And I really appreciated seeing the women in the story wrestle with that.
[00:16:05] Something we talked about in our book club forums was... the question was: whose story of the three women do you most connect with? One theory was maybe you connect to the one who you are closest to in life stage but I'm not necessarily certain that's true.
But what I would love to hear is, can you describe the three generations of women who were present in this book? Like, who are the characters and how did you think about them as you were writing them?
THAO: So the character who came to me first was Minh. She was the grandmother. She is the grandmother. I saw the story completely from her perspective, told completely from her perspective, because she is such an active presence. She has a voice. She is constantly asserting herself sometimes in wonderful ways and then sometimes in ways that make you shake your head and say, why are you meddling right now? But because her voice was so strong, it was easy for me to imagine her in this story.
[00:17:05] The context of her as a teenager in the Vietnam War, I was really fascinated by that because my own mother grew up during that time in South Vietnam and I had a lot of questions about what it must have been like. Because when you're coming of age you're grappling with so many different desires and questions of identity and questions of who you want to be. And then when you overlay that on such a kind of heady setting as a war happening in your backyard, it really changes things a lot.
So men really drew me in from the beginning. But as I wrote more and more I discovered that what I was most interested in was the way these three women were able to look at the same moment in time with their own perspectives and come away with such different stories. I was interested in the stories that they were telling themselves about their shared past.
[00:18:02] So that's where the other women's perspectives came in because I felt like the story wouldn't be complete unless you were also able to get inside the head of Huong who is this very dreamy, very romantic person who is sometimes little more passive because of her dreaminess because she lives life so much in the head.
Then you have Ann who is the character who's probably most similar to me in age and life stage. She was an illustrator. She has this idea of a perfect life for herself and she really wanted to leave the past behind very definitively. She wanted to leave Florida, the Banyan House and the messiness of it, and she wanted someplace neat and simple and cleanly delineated.
And so when she is tugged back into this world, she finds not only all of these questions about her grandmother and her mother, but questions about herself and what really makes her feel like home.
[00:19:02] This is a book that's really about home more than anything else. The home we find in places, but also the home we find in people.
ANNE: Oh, I love that description.
THAO: Which character did you most relate to, Anne?
ANNE: That's an interesting question. I love this book because I related to Ann. I related a lot to the frustration and fire that we see in the women when they're keeping secrets from each other, because y'all, my family tree is full of secrets. Some of which, I'm sure, have not come out and maybe never will. We'll see.
Although I have read, well-worded in a book, that I put a lot of credence in that secrets never stay hidden. So we will see. And we'll talk about that shortly. That look on my face was like, how quickly are we going to get into this?
I do not share that immigrant experience. Like it goes back further with my generations. So I felt more of a distance from the women, even as some of the things that, especially Anne, I think just generationally.
[00:20:06] My oldest child is 20 and yet it still feels like I just had him and was, you know, keeping the secret of the pregnancy at the dinner table because I wasn't ready to tell all the everyones yet. Oh-
THAO: I remember that, too. That's kind of the first secret we keep as mothers, right?
ANNE: But also I do feel old enough now that mothers not telling their children things for what they think is their own good, but maybe they're wrong. I really see that, too.
Some of the things I really loved about this story were some of the interesting narrative devices you chose. Like, uh, would you... I can say more about that, but would you talk about how you chose to give voice to each woman? And of course... ghost story isn't quite the way to put it. But I loved the way that we did not lose the narrative even after one of the women died.
[00:21:05] And friends, I do not feel like this is a spoiler in any way. This is very much a story about grief and intimacy and loss and reckoning with... you know what, I'm going to stop. Thai, would you take it from here?
THAO: Absolutely. So yeah, I think when I first wrote this book, it was probably a little more magical. It veered a little more on the ghost story side. But as I worked on it more, I realized that I wanted the ghostliness to be less of a literal moment, less of a literal device, and more of an impression that leaves itself in the world.
When I was writing this, I was thinking a lot about grief as well, because at the time, my grandfather, who is really the only father figure I've ever had, he was ill. And so I thought a lot about what it would be like if he weren't there and how the resonances of his life might extend to mine, not just in terms of what he'd experienced, but the way he might still impact my life today.
[00:22:19] He was the person who was always keeping track of me. So he would take photos of me and he would have whole albums of me. And he said it was because, you know, I didn't have a father. So he felt like somebody had to be witness to my life.
I'm going to get pretty emotional talking about this. But that idea of having a witness to your life who has seen you since the beginning, that is so meaningful. And that is something I think so many of us long for. That's kind of what the device of Minh and her narrative is doing. She is a witness to these women as they're going through the many moments of hardship and healing. To me, that is something so beautiful, even in the midst of this grief, that you can still hang on to this part of them.
ANNE: That's beautiful. It's not surprising to see how personal the story is to you because it feels so personal. In fact, we had a question, I'm gonna work it in now, from Melinda. She said, "These women their lives, their stories felt so real and so authentic." She asked if you found inspiration in your own family's experiences because... I think the implication there, Melinda, was you just seem to know it so well and know your character so well and know their story so well.
[00:23:48] THAO: Well, thank you. That's so kind. I love that feedback. Because they feel really real to me too. I actually sometimes before bed, I find myself kind of daydreaming and wondering like, Oh, what is Ann up to now? How old is the baby? Where are they going? So there's a real sense of wanting to meet friends that you knew in the past when you let go of a character in that way. So that means a lot to me.
I was certainly very influenced by my family. They are the best storytellers you'll ever meet. And because of where we lived in rural Vietnam, there wasn't a lot to do. There wasn't cable TV. For a long time the internet wasn't in that part of Vietnam. And so at night, if you weren't going out to the bars, you were huddled at home around a lamp talking and telling stories. And that's how I came to know so many of the things that I cherish today about my family.
[00:24:49] Like I would hear about what it felt like for my grandparents to be carrying their children through swamplands as they were escaping the VC during the war. Then I would hear about how my aunt was courted by my uncle singing underneath her window and how she told him no like 20 times before she finally decided that she would marry him. Now they're still together like 40 years later.
These stories really wove their way into the fiber of who I was. And for a long time, I was looking a lot outwards because when I was growing up in the 90s, the 2000s, there just weren't a ton of Asian American authors and there were very few Vietnamese American authors in particular. So I was thinking about all these different stories that had no resemblance to mine at all. And I thought that was the story that I needed to tell.
[00:25:48] For a long time in my creative writing workshops, I was writing stories that kind of fit the mold of these other kind of domestic fiction stories that I'd been reading over the years. But in the past decade, I've just felt such a call to share the stories that have meant so much to me in the hopes that they would mean a lot to someone else, regardless of their context.
People often ask how long it took to write Banyan Moon, and I'll say, well, it took 10 months and a lifetime. Because that's what it is with a lot of debut novels, because you have this time to sit and let the bread rise, so to speak. You are turning these questions and ideas over and over in your head for so long. And these characters really came out of that.
ANNE: Oh, I love that so much. Thank you. Okay, Janice has a fun question. She says, "If you had to pick a signature element of each character, what would they be?" For Janice, she says she thinks of swimming for Huong. And oh my goodness, I love that line about now that her mother has gone, now that Minh has died, she has to find a new way of moving in the world, anger from Ann and the collector of stuff from Minh.
[00:27:00] THAO: Oh, I like all those. That seems accurate to me. Let's see. I think Ann is the investigator of the three of them. I think that she has a mind to parse out the secrets. She does not like when things are hidden. I see that in her.
In Huong, I see her as the dreamer, of course. I see her as the person who has a very idealized version of what life should look like and has difficulty moving away from that vision even when it becomes clear to everyone else it's never going to happen.
Then Minh, I think she's a survivor. She is the person who will make the hard decisions, the unlikable decisions to make sure that she and her family are safe. That is so much of what I've seen in a lot of experiences with immigrants, especially those who are refugees of war. There is an added pressure to ensure that physical safety. And that sometimes trumps issues of emotional safety, for better or worse.
[00:28:13] ANNE: I feel like now's a good time to talk about secrets, then. I loved and also just melted at some of the dynamics of keeping the secrets, especially because we see as characters the women's internal dialogue. Like we see how much they have suffered and we can completely understand how much they did not want their mothers and daughters to know about that suffering and yet.
Then you have that beautiful line that secrets never stay hidden, someone always has to deal with the fallout. In whatever way you would like to do, would you talk to us about secrets in this book and the fallout perhaps?
THAO: Absolutely. So here you find these women who none of them are without secrets, I would say. Part of the reason that they keep these secrets from one another is because they think that they're committing an act of generosity to protect the other women from the secrets.
[00:29:17] In some cases, that's true. Like in the case of Huong's parentage, for example, you know, that's a secret that would have devastated her. Minh and her locked trunk and all the things that she buries as well, that is something that wouldn't have been safe for the other women, especially Ann to know about.
While it's true that secrets can sometimes be toxic and they can tear families apart, I'm of the mind that sometimes secrets or maybe even more generally privacy is something that isn't inherently a bad thing to gift to other generations.
For example, I am pretty transparent with my daughter. I'll tell her anything she asks. She's only seven so I probably don't need to tell her everything she asks. But my mom was the opposite. She was very withholding about her life. And it was only after I became a mother when I crossed that threshold that she would tell me stories about her past as well.
[00:30:26] And as much as I loved the stories and I couldn't get enough, especially the stories of my dad who I never met, I really valued the fact that they were hers ultimately, that these were things that did not belong to me. I didn't feel entitled to them. I feel like even if it's me waiting my whole life for things that never come to fruition, I do think that... ultimately I've decided that it is her right and her story to tell.
So, so much of what we do as humans, I think, is we're negotiating the lines between which stories are ours and which stories belong to someone else, particularly in this age of social media and what we choose to share and not share.
A lot of parents, for example, have chosen not to share anything about their children for fear of privacy reasons. I don't know. I think that line between secrets and privacy and restraint, it's very fuzzy in this book. I really wanted to complicate and subvert that idea that secrets are always bad things, bad, evil, toxic things.
[00:31:39] ANNE: There are no easy answers there, I think, which is why it was so fascinating to see your characters wrestle with those exact questions. There's two big things we really want to hear about in terms of place and setting, and those are Florida. Would you tell us about Florida?
THAO: Sure.
ANNE: Why Florida? How Florida? What's your relationship to Florida? Whatever you'd like to say.
THAO: Yes. So I'm a Floridian. I grew up in the Tampa Bay area by the beach. The swamplands weren't for a far drive either. So I had access to both of those very different ecosystems. I remember when I was in Florida, I really wanted to leave Florida. I just felt like it was so hot, it was so oppressive.
I came from a smaller town so, you know, we had a tiny library. There was one bookstore I think and just not a lot going on. So I thought, "I'm gonna go elsewhere." And I did. I kind of hopped around the country.
[00:32:38] But now that I'm older, I find myself longing for the Florida of my youth so much. The oceans in particular, the water, the sand. So a lot of this book really was longing and an homage to Florida because Florida has also changed a lot since I last lived there like 30-something years ago.
There's a climate crisis happening. There is an ideological crisis happening in Florida. And so this is so much a love letter to place that I couldn't withhold all those elements, the beautiful ones as well as the ones that are grotesque and troubling as well.
That's kind of the beauty, I think, of Southern literature and the Southern Gothic tradition. There is such an interplay between the very, very beautiful evanescence of a place, but then also the grittiness and the dirt and the way that landscape can hide different elements, like bodies, for example.
[00:33:49] Another interesting thing about Florida is because it is surrounded by water, it was a place for a lot of Vietnamese boat people and refugees during the war. So there is a big Vietnamese concentration in Florida as well.
There's a similarity actually between Florida and Vietnam. They both have this tropical heat. There's this wildness and lushness of vegetation, but there's also this sense of danger in the landscape that you could get sucked down by a swamp or you could be accosted by like a giant python. Not a python, like an alligator or something. So those contradictions of place, of beauty and fear, that really motivated this book.
ANNE: Can you say a little bit more about Southern Gothic?
THAO: Sure. Because I'm from Florida, I grew up reading a lot of Southern Gothic literature, Eudora Welty and Faulkner. I was always really drawn to the way that they portrayed transgression, this idea that you could make your way onto a place that is actively hostile to you.
[00:35:00] I think it really appealed to me as an immigrant because that is so much of the diasporic tradition as well. The idea of setting foot in strange places that might not always welcome you. There's a sense of underlying hostility, which you can see in certain chapters of the book.
Of course, Southern Gothic is traditionally written by a lot of White writers and white men in particular. And so, I was interested in what would it be like for a woman who is an immigrant who does not have this long heritage in the South to enter into that tradition. That itself felt like a transgression and a subversion of sorts.
ANNE: I mean, I can only think of one title off the top of my head to back this up, but I think that I'm increasingly seeing, maybe I just want to believe that I'm increasingly seeing Black authors, immigrant authors writing Southern Gothic stories. House of Cotton by Monica, I think it's Brashears, is the first one that springs to mind, and it just came out in the spring.
[00:36:07] THAO: Oh, I'm writing that down. I have not read that. I do think the tradition is diversifying so much and so beautifully. Just writing in general, we are living in such a golden age for diverse literature right now.
ANNE: It's so interesting. Okay, I'm going to be thinking more about that. Thank you for saying more about that. I appreciate it. Also that is fascinating.
THAO: Thank you for the question. I think as readers sometimes we, or as writers, we begin to write the things that we wish we had encountered more when we were kids. You know, whether you're a reader or writer, I think there's a real hunger for different stories that we haven't seen before.
ANNE: We have to ask about the banyan tree. One reader — oh, I already cleared it. I'm so sorry. I'm not using your name here — said specifically, Why... Katie. It was Katie. Thank you, Katie. Why a banyan tree? Does it have to be a banyan tree? What led you to the banyan? Can I also quote your own text? There's a funny exchange between two characters where one of the characters describes them as homicidal sentient trees because of the way their roots, oh gosh, just like strangle the other plants growing nearby. You can describe this better. Tell us about the banyans.
[00:37:29] THAO: Right. So if you have not seen a banyan tree, they are amazing. They come in different sizes. An old high school teacher of mine just emailed me actually and he sent a picture near his home in Florida where it was a corridor of banyan trees. So you can imagine just like as far as the eye could see just these massive trees kind of hanging over the road. It was... Talk about gothic. So it had to be a banyan tree.
Actually, the book was a little bit loose and then when I hit upon the metaphor of a banyan tree, it all kind of snapped together for me because I think so much in metaphor and imagery, maybe as a former designer, I needed something to help tie everything together. And that was the thing.
So, if you haven't seen a banyan tree, they are very large. They can grow to be enormous. And they're actually... yes, there they are. They're actually referred to as an invasive species. And for a long time, it was illegal to plant one because what happens is instead of just growing upwards like most trees, they grow out. Their roots kind of hang down and begin to create new offshoots in the ground.
[00:38:49] As they grow out, what happens is they overrun the surrounding vegetation. So there is really a creeping quality to them. Their branches are very gnarled and they almost seem... like if you look up close, their branches almost seem to be braided. And there was something about that that really suited the narrative of the three points of view, three generations.
The other thing that's really important about the banyan tree is that Florida is one of the few places in the United States where they occur but Vietnam is also a place that has banyan trees. In fact, in Vietnam there is a very old and beloved folktale that centers a banyan tree. This is what I'm talking about fairy dust. You know, it seems to happen to you, you know?
ANNE: Okay, so Hillary and Lindsay both want to know the meaning and symbolism of the title Banyan Moon, and they both specifically said, not house, not tree. Also, maybe this will take us to men's stories. Maybe it won't. But would you speak to that?
[00:39:58] THAO: Sure. That is a reference to a folktale that Minh tells in the novel about Chú Cuội, who is a woodcutter. So he comes across this banyan tree and it changes his fortunes. But then due to unforeseen circumstances, the tree begins to lift from the ground. It's a tale of magical realism as so many Vietnamese folktales are.
And so as it's lifting from the ground, Chú Cuội, the woodcutter holds on to one of the branches and leaves his family behind and the tree takes him up to the moon. So the story is that if you look up on the moon and you see the shadows and the craters it's Chú Cuội still up there with his banyan tree holding on at all costs.
I think there was something there that really appealed to me about this idea of what we choose to cling to and what we choose to let go of. And that is so much Minh's journey of grief, but also all of the women's journey in terms of what relationships they let go of.
[00:41:05] ANNE: I love that, thank you. Would you tell us about the house as a character? So many readers commented on that this house was more than just a dwelling.
THAO: Yes, yes, and that's very much a part of Southern Gothic literature as well, this idea of the house reflecting the psyche of the characters. During this time, I was reading books like Rebecca and Mexican Gothic in which the houses are these very hostile beings that kind of act upon the characters as much as the characters act upon the houses. So, it really arrested my imagination.
These women end up in this house that, I mean, it is crumbling apart at the same time that just it's crammed with stuff like dolls and newspapers and linens that nobody's used for a hundred years. And what appealed to me about that as well was a subversion of this trope of the family house. Because in America, so much of the tradition is of inheritance happens because you have been in a place for a long time. You pass a house down through the generations because you were one of the first to get there, to make your mark on the land to build the house.
[00:42:33] For a lot of immigrants of the diaspora that just wasn't a thing. You arrived and you bought a house. It wasn't necessarily going to be this house that had been in your family for centuries. But Minh comes upon this house and it's her house and now she's making a new start here. And that's such an encapsulation of the American dream for her. But it is a version of the American dream that gets very twisted in this book.
So to me, the house was incredibly fun to write as a person who loves houses, especially old houses. I used to go to... I don't know if any of you have done this. But I used to go to estate sales and it wasn't so much to buy anything but it was like an inner sense of nosiness.
I just really enjoyed walking through rooms that had been furnished and rifling through this stuff and wondering, you know, this box of postcards, what's the story here? And why is this mirror cracked and yet still on the bathroom wall? You know, a house is a story. A house is a collection of stories. And this book really celebrates that.
[00:43:36] ANNE: Katie specifically said... you said that you really enjoyed it, but she wanted to know what was the experience like about writing about the tree and the house? Did you think about that any differently than your human characters?
THAO: I think so. I wanted the house to have a different level of foreboding. The human characters contain multitudes. They are full of grief and anger, but they're also full of hope. Whereas I don't know that there is that same sense of redemption when it comes to the house and the tree.
I think for me, those were just symbols of decay more than anything else, of a promise never fulfilled. So when I was writing those I really leaned on to the elements that were a little darker and a little more shadowed. To me, that was just really satisfying as a writer to be able to really like dig deep into that kind of grotesqueness.
[00:44:40] ANNE: I love that. Thank you. I need to ask you about some of the just really, oh, that was purposely put lines you have in the book. We talked about the secrets, about how somebody always has to deal with the fallout. You talk about little boys and how there's just something beautiful about a little boy and what could the men who hurt us have been had they been loved enough.
You talk about Diane, the sister-in-law that we love to hate in the book, or maybe that's just me. You write, Diane is flighty, but she's rarely wrong about the weather. It's perhaps the one thing that makes her interesting.
Would you talk to me about getting the words right? What was your process like? Was there anything that made you feel particularly satisfied about the way the words fell on the page or the way things came together in the story? I loved hearing you describe how everything snapped together when you realized the banyan tree was the perfect metaphor, but does anything else feel like it was especially, like, got an extra coating of fairy dust? Sierra says: definitely love to hate Diane.
THAO: Yeah.
[00:45:44] ANNE: She's not worse than her husband, though. Is she? Or is she?
THAO: I don't know. I don't think anyone could be worse than Fook. I think in another life, I might have been a poet or a songwriter. I'm really desperately in love with the musicality of words, the way they fit together. Because English is my second language, I don't take it for granted.
It took me a few years to learn English. I went to summer school and there was real fear around my never being able to learn to read. And so when I finally did learn to read, it was as if that feeling people talk about, like putting on glasses and then you can see the texture of the leaves. When I was able to read in English and to write in English, I felt like I saw the texture of the world around me.
[00:46:44] So anytime I hit upon a phrase that feels like so true and so gripping to me, like the one you said about young boys, that came out of nowhere. And when I wrote that, I felt like, oh, this is a true thing. And I fought it, and I felt it, but I never said it. And now, because I have given it this corporeality, this tangibility, the fact that it exists in the world, that to me is very magical.
When I'm writing and these sentences kind of emerge in this way that feels like so inevitable. Like I'll even think, have I heard that somewhere before because it's so familiar to me. And then I realized no I haven't heard it anywhere before, I've just felt it for years. And so as a writer, that is... I don't know. There's just nothing in the world like it.
[00:47:44] ANNE: As a reader, I love that feeling of reading something that I might've experienced as a swirling thought, but had never articulated and to read it on the page. It's like my thought can fully form because now it has words that have been given to me. So thank you for that.
THAO: Oh, exactly. Oh, I was just gonna say, and it's-
ANNE: No, no, you're great.
THAO: It's the relationship between the reader and the writer. I think of a book as a very collaborative act. I might be the one putting the words on the page, but it's that interaction with the readers, exactly what you talked about, that sense of like, oh, yes, we've shared this common space before. I think that's why we read to connect. And so when I hear something like that happening, it just feels like... I don't know. This is why we all love books so much.
ANNE: It really is. I have a couple of quick questions for you, and then we're going to talk about what you're working on, if you care to share, and what you love to read. So quick questions. Brigid asks, can you French braid hair like the characters? She loved those scenes and descriptions. Also, she never learned to French braid and she regrets it. I happen to know Brigid has two daughters.
[00:48:49] THAO: Oh Brigid, it is so easy. Just YouTube video. I did not learn until recently. My daughter she saw a hairstyle on TV or something and she really wanted her hair French braided. So I learned. I was doing it with her hair before school. And I was teaching my husband how to do it too because he wanted to know how to French braid.
There was something about that tradition that felt so lovely because I remember my mom doing that for me. And now I see my daughter kind of doing that with her dolls too. And so something about the physicality of braiding mixed with like the moment of repose you have when you and your kiddo are just sitting there together, there's something really, really beautiful happening there.
ANNE: Thank you. She says she's definitely going to YouTube it. Ann says... this is a foreign rights question that you may or may not know, but if you do. She says she is... well, here, cuts off the Chase. Do you happen to know if this book will be translated into French? Is that in the works at this time?
THAO: Oh my gosh. I would love that. I haven't heard anything about it. Tell me if this is too nitty gritty. But in case you don't know, when a novel goes out in the world, they will shop it out. The publisher will pitch it to these foreign rights teams across the world. It just depends on whether there's any interest and they want to offer on it.
[00:50:18] It's in the UK, and I do know it is coming out in Italy next year. So that's going to be really exciting to see it in Italian. I don't speak Italian. But if you do, maybe that'll be interesting. But long story short, no, it is not. But there is a big pipeline of Vietnamese-French stories that are translated, so fingers crossed.
ANNE: Buy lots of copies. Best sellers are more likely... I mean, this has already done so well, and we're so happy to see it finding its audience.
THAO: Thank you. Thank you, Anne.
ANNE: But that never hurts.
THAO: I'm so lucky, yes.
ANNE: Kate says she's never heard of dipping citrus pieces in salt. Could you say more about that?
THAO: Yeah, that might just be something that's very specific to my family. Well, the whole cut fruit tradition is very much a part of Asian-American culture and how generations show love. But in particular, that's something that I would always do.
I remember on really hot days, we would eat a bowl of rice with watermelon on it and a sprinkle of salt. And it sounds very weird, but it's so refreshing. That's one of those taste memories that's really specific. And if you think about it, like you know that book, Salt Fat Acid Heat, it's like that interplay between the sweetness and the salt that really brings out all the flavors. So if you have an orange or a watermelon around, try it.
[00:51:35] ANNE: Okay. Does anyone else know what they want to do in their kitchen after we hang up? Thao, I'd love to hear either or, or there could be an and here, both here as well, what do you enjoy reading? Either what do you love or were there any works that particularly inspired or got you thinking about Banyan Moon?
THAO: Yes, so I read across all genres. I love romance. I love thrillers. The only one I can't do is horror, but that's just because I'm a scaredy cat. But I think that you can learn something from every genre. But I will say some of my favorite books are the ones that really transport you.
I think some people like to read contemporary books that are very of the moment and deal with situations that are very pressing, which I totally understand and appreciate as well. But for me, I really want to be taken to a totally different place.
[00:52:39] I want to be in a world I have never experienced before, encountering characters I've never met before. And I think that's just because I haven't traveled as much in my life as I would have liked. And so for me, books have always been a form of traveling.
I'm reading Tom Lake right now, as I'm sure so many of us are, and it's beautiful. Anne Patchett is a treasure. Let's see.
ANNE: I have to tell you, while you're thinking in the back of your mind, several readers have noticed in chat like, oh, it feels kind of similar. Like in Tom Lake, the mother is deciding what she's going to tell her daughters and what she's going to keep for herself and how much of the story they can hear, and how much she wants them to hear. They're totally different stories and yet I thought that was an interesting similarity. Readers are right. Thanks for sharing that in chat.
THAO: You're always right. Yeah, like of curating the story. I love that. That's so smart. My favorite writers are Jesmyn Ward. Oh my gosh, Sing, Unburied, Sing, the most life-changing book I've ever read. And that one has that tinge of magical realism too, that ghostliness of this narrator who is beyond the grave. A
[00:53:53] I don't know if you've read any of Lauren Groff's work, but Arcadia is one of my very favorite Lauren Groff books. It's set in the woods in this commune, this idealistic commune. And the texture of the place, it is so gritty and so real, and I just want to dive right into it. So books that have that sense of texture of both character and place, they really appeal to me. But those are some of my favorite writers.
Then recently I read a book I really loved, and it was very different from my usual. It's called How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water. Have you read that? It's by Angie Cruz.
ANNE: I listened to the audio, which I thought was great.
THAO: Yeah, it's so good.
ANNE: You can hear the creaking doors and the bells and the typewriter.
THAO: Yes, exactly. Yes, it's the voiciness that's so appealing to me. Oh my gosh, we have so many good books right now.
ANNE: I love the word voiciness.
THAO: Yeah, me too.
ANNE: Okay, I have to tell you all that in her Substack, Thao wrote a post — oh gosh, I don't know how long ago this was — 38 Books That Changed Me, and we will put it in show notes. That's coming your way, and then you can subscribe. Okay.
[00:55:02] THAO: Oh, and I have to add a quick little plug too. This chapter got cut from the novel, but it is the chapter in which you find out how Minh came to own the Banyan house, came to inherit it, so to speak. My editor and I cut it from the novel, but I did include it in my newsletter. So if you are ever curious about that, you can go there and it's a free newsletter. You can check it out.
ANNE: GPK Sunshine asked that question in this session and we haven't gotten to it. So yes, Thao has your answer. I wish we could talk all day, but this is the last question.
THAO: Okay.
ANNE: What are you working on right now?
THAO: Oh, I'm so excited to share what I'm working on. It comes out in summer of 2025, so not too far in the distance. It is a literary thriller and it grapples with many of the similar sense of tangled family relationships and secrets and kind of journeys of healing that you will see in Banyan Moon, but it is set in a totally different world.
[00:56:03] It's set in the high stakes, super glamorous, high art world. So think museums and galas and hidden pieces of art and forgeries and all that good stuff. So I'm very excited about that and excited to talk about it more when it's official. But in case I have any romance fans out there, you can kind of put this in your back pocket. But I might be writing a book under a pen name that's coming out next fall that is a little bit of a spicy romcom. So yeah, stay tuned for that.
ANNE: How are we going to stay up to date on all these book developments? Is your Substack the right place? I know we can follow you on Instagram. What do you recommend? Because we need to know this. I think Nicole said that she can see my summer reading wheels turning for 2025. That might be true.
THAO: That's so fun. Yes, I'm on Instagram and my website's thaowrites.com, and also my Substack. I always love hearing from readers and fellow readers so we can recommend books to each other. So please reach out anytime. It's been an honor to be here.
[00:57:13] ANNE: Aileen says, how will we know the pen name? Can we presume this pen name isn't a huge secret that we can read about it in your substack?
THAO: No, it's not. It is Nora Nguyen. I've kind of started a tiny Instagram for her. It's weird thinking about this sense of alter egos, but also sort of fun because there is a way that like Bayan Moon is branded as sort of this literary novel. But then I have this other side to me that's really lighthearted. I love puns and I love bright pink Taylor Swift motifs and playlists. So I think I get to let that out with my alter ego and that's going to be fun.
ANNE: That reminds me, Thao has shared a Banyan Moon playlist on Instagram. We should link to that as well. Oh, and Brigid, thank you for sharing those links in the chat. Thao, this has been so delightful. Is there anything else you would like to say?
THAO: No. I'm really honored. You know, every time I talk to anyone who's been associated with your book club or knows anything about it, they just rave about this beautiful community of readers that you've created. I'm just incredibly honored to have been a part of this conversation.
[00:58:26] ANNE: That's so kind. Thank you. And thank you all for making this such a wonderful community. Thao, we've been looking forward to this all summer, or some of us maybe a little longer. Thank you so much for joining us and being so generous with your time and your work. And who's going to go read this again after our conversation and devour your entire substack? We can't wait to see what you do next. Thank you so much for joining us.
THAO: Thank you so much. Have a good summer, everyone.
ANNE: Thank you. Thank you.
Hey, readers, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Thao. This peek behind the scenes of one of our fabulous book club events. Find Thao at her website and on Instagram @Thaowrites. T-H-A-O-W-R-I-T-E-S.
We've got all those links and the full list of titles we talked about today at our show notes page at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.
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[00:59:44] And if you've loved more book talk like today's conversation with Thao, come on over and check out our Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club. We would love to have you join us, and this is such a great time of year to get in on that action. Sign up now and enjoy one of our most anticipated perks of membership. That is our Summer Reading Guide and live Unboxing Party of it. Find all of the details at modernmrsdarcy.com/srg for Summer Reading Guide.
Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by Will Bogel, Holly Wielkoszewski, and Studio D Podcast Production. Readers, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, "Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading." Happy reading, everyone.
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Books mentioned in this episode:
• Banyan Moon
• Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
• The Tobacco Wives by Adele Myers
• Eudora Welty (try The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty)
• William Faulkner (try As I Lay Dying)
• House of Cotton by Monica Brashears
• Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat
• Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
• Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
• Arcadia by Lauren Groff
• How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz
Also mentioned:
• Gramercy Books
• Thao’s Substack
• 38 Books That Changed Me
• Thao’s website
• Thao’s Instagram account
• Banyan Moon Playlist
One comment
What a lovely episode! Thank you, Anne and Thao! I loved the discussion on family secrets and agree that individual privacy is an important factor in why secrets are kept. My own family has kept secrets. I think we have to remember that times were different back then. Shame may have been a factor in the desire for secrecy that wouldn’t be a factor today. I will be adding Banyan Moon to my TBR.