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A review by maryleong
She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran
4.0
Having read several haunted house novels in the past few months, the genre feels oversaturated, yet She is a Haunting manages to stand out in a crowded field. What sets this novel apart from so many others is its exploration of colonialism, diaspora, family, and rootlessness.
Set in Đà Lạt, where French colonists built sprawling resorts and holiday homes, this novel is visceral, sun-drenched horror amidst a tropical paradise. If Jade Nguyen can spend five weeks pretending to be a happy family with her estranged father in the colonial mansion he's restoring, he'll pay for her college tuition. The emotional and physical impact of French imperialism is seen through visions and flashbacks, its atrocities embedded into the very foundations of the house and land. Modern-day academic imperialism further reinforces the power imbalance in the form of an American scholar who positions herself as an expert over the lived experience of the Vietnamese.
Likewise, Jade embodies these binaries of simultaneously being too Vietnamese and too American, never quite enough and too much of either to belong fully in either. As in the past, where some Vietnamese who aligned themselves with the French were shunned by their families, there is tension between the diaspora and those who remained. In chasing the ghosts of a family that wants nothing to do with him, Jade's father allows the darkness to consume him. Overall, an incredibly compelling and powerful read with deeply disturbing horror elements.
Set in Đà Lạt, where French colonists built sprawling resorts and holiday homes, this novel is visceral, sun-drenched horror amidst a tropical paradise. If Jade Nguyen can spend five weeks pretending to be a happy family with her estranged father in the colonial mansion he's restoring, he'll pay for her college tuition. The emotional and physical impact of French imperialism is seen through visions and flashbacks, its atrocities embedded into the very foundations of the house and land. Modern-day academic imperialism further reinforces the power imbalance in the form of an American scholar who positions herself as an expert over the lived experience of the Vietnamese.
Likewise, Jade embodies these binaries of simultaneously being too Vietnamese and too American, never quite enough and too much of either to belong fully in either. As in the past, where some Vietnamese who aligned themselves with the French were shunned by their families, there is tension between the diaspora and those who remained. In chasing the ghosts of a family that wants nothing to do with him, Jade's father allows the darkness to consume him. Overall, an incredibly compelling and powerful read with deeply disturbing horror elements.