The Tapestries: A Novel

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 336 pages
• Published by: Back Bay Books October 15, 2003
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0316735604
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0316735605
• Book Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Weighs: 11.2 ounces

From Publishers Weekly
Nguyen follows his acclaimed memoir, The Unwanted (2001), with a daringly complex and vividly imagined debut novel about a boy who fights to reclaim his family's royal legacy in Vietnam at the turn of the century. Seven-year-old Dan Nguyen is married in childhood to a 27-year-old family servant named Ven, who hides and protects the boy when rivals come to execute Dan's parents. But Dan's strange union with Ven is disrupted when Ven contracts malaria and she is forced to sell him into Slavery to the mayor's family. Dan's stint as a slave proves fateful, though, when he becomes the personal servant of the gorgeous Tai May and the two fall in love. In spite of Dan's station, Tai May chooses him over a wealthy young suitor. When the spurned suitor spies on Dan and finds out about his marriage to Ven, Dan is forced to flee the family. The dizzying intricacy of the plotting occasionally becomes a bit overwhelming as Nguyen tracks Ven's tragic fate and Dan's search for Tai May while attempting to piece together a treasure map that has been laid out as an interlocking series of body tattoos. But the beauty of Nguyen's stately, ornate prose-perfectly suited to the rigidly formal customs of Vietnamese royalty-serves him well as the complex plot unfolds. The scope of the tale and its grace and power make this a formidable first novel.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal
Nguyen follows up The Unwanted, his memoir of growing up Amerasian in postwar Vietnam, with a first novel based on stories from his grandfather's past. Nguyen relates an epic tale of family, greed, revenge, and love set in Vietnam during the early decades of the 20th century. During this time, there was growing discontent with colonial rule as well as greater acceptance of Western ways. The hero, Dan Nguyen, is married at the age of seven to Ven, nearly twenty years his senior. Shortly after their marriage, Dan's family falls victim to local rivalries and revolutionary intrigue, and the newlyweds witness the brutal murders of Dan's father and two of his three wives. Ven urges her reluctant child-husband to seek revenge, but his quest stalls when he falls in love with his enemy's granddaughter. An exciting tale that takes many twists and turns before finally ending with Dan's telling his stories to his young grandson, this work is marred somewhat by its fairy-tale qualities and minimal character development. Recommended for public and academic fiction collections.
Rebecca Stuhr, Grinnell Coll. Libs., IA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: The Tapestries: A Novel (Hardcover) I enjoyed this book and its a very interesting story. I like dhis first book a little better though. (The Unwanted) its worth reading.