The Forgetting Tree: Review and Giveaway

Even before I saw the gorgeous cover, I was interested in reading Tatjana Soli's new book, as I relished her first novel, The Lotus Eaters, published in 2010, my first novel about the Vietnam War.  In 2010 I was also fortunate to interview this gracious author, while she was working on her latest book. The Forgetting Tree by Tatjana Soli is the author's second novel, which was published earlier this month.

"Alone, the last of the sun on her skin, the moment took Claire back to her early days, peeling an orange as she walked through the rows of trees, dropping a confetti of rind behind her, eating the sun-warmed fruit, the girls small and playful as puppies, running in their coveralls through the trees--seeing eternity down the rows the long way, seeing only the bushy trees across--yelling, laughing, You're it!  You're it!  You're it!"
~The Forgetting Tree, Tatjana Soli

The Forgetting Tree is a novel about the life of Claire Nagy.  Claire relinquishes her literary education to follow her heart when she marries Forster Baumsarg, the son of California citrus ranchers.  Living on the ranch in Southern California, she develops an intense, lasting love of the land.  Early in the book, Claire experiences a horrific, heartbreaking loss at the ranch.  As time passes her entire family suffers, and she has ongoing problems with her two daughters, Gwen and Lucy, as well as marital difficulties.  Even when Claire is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, Claire's determined to stay on the ranch.

To be a good writer, you need to have style, and you need to have substance.  Tatjana Soli's new novel is rich in both style and substance. Beautifully written, sensuous, and profound, The Forgetting Tree is a book about relationships, including the relationships you have with yourself and with your surroundings (in this case, the citrus ranch).  The cast of characters in this novel--and I use the word 'cast' purposely because the book is cinematic--especially Claire, Forster, Gwen, Lucy, Octavio, Don, Mrs. Girbaldi, and, of course, Minna,  enact a story that's haunting, offbeat, and surprising at times.  Claire's caregiver, the mesmeric Minna, is a particularly alluring character; she helps Claire in numerous ways, and reignites Claire's "lost" love of literature.  Claire aptly rereads Wide Sargasso Sea (a book I've coveted since reading about it on The Reading Life). 

The Forgetting Tree features unexpected yet elegant illustrations by the author's husband, Gaylord Soli, which tie into the story well.  I could go on and on about this new novel, The Forgetting Tree.  Instead, I implore you to read it yourself, and provide a chance for you to win a copy of the book.

St. Martin's Press is generously offering a copy of The Forgetting Tree as a giveaway (U.S./Canada only).

• To enter this giveaway, simply leave a comment.
• For another chance at winning, become a follower of this blog, or let me know that you're already a follower.
• For an additional chance, post about this contest on your blog, Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter.

Enter by 5 PM PDT on Monday, October 1.  One winner will be selected randomly and announced on Tuesday, October 2. 


Special thanks to Lisa from TLC for sending me an advance readers' edition of this book (and for this reason, the lines quoted above may be different in the final version of the novel). To read more reviews of this book, please visit the other stops on TLC's book tour for The Forgetting Tree.

Winner of The Lotus Eaters

Many congratulations to Darlene from Peeking Between the Pages! She's won a copy of the novel The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli.

If you didn't win this time, don't despair! I have other book giveaways posted on this site, and more giveaways are planned for the near future, so you might win a book soon.

As always, thanks for visiting. Your comments are welcomed and appreciated.

Winner of The Art of Racing in the Rain

Let's have a round of applause for Naida from the bookworm, the winner of The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. Congratulations, Naida!

I'd like to take a moment now to thank all of my readers. I know it can be difficult to take the time to stop by, read, and leave comments. One of the ways I show my appreciation is by hosting book giveaways, and I often post giveaways from other book blogs, too. Currently I have a giveaway for The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli, so feel free to enter that giveaway if you haven't done so yet, and stay tuned for upcoming book giveaways. As always, thanks for reading!

A Conversation with Tatjana Soli

Having recently read and reviewed her debut novel, The Lotus Eaters, I am honored to present this interview with author Tatjana Soli.

1) Welcome, Tatjana! Please tell us about the inspiration behind your debut novel, The Lotus Eaters. Was there a "final straw" which compelled you to write this particular book?

TS: I was always fascinated by the war, probably because my mom worked for NATO and at Fort Ord during the war, so the military was something familiar to me from an early age. That said, two things triggered me to finally write about Vietnam. First, I came across the story of Dickey Chapelle, one of the first women photojournalists in Vietnam, actually she was also the first one to be killed there. I had never heard of women serving in the capacity of journalist, and I was fascinated. Through research, I came across another, Katherine Leroy. As fascinating and inspiring as both of these women were, though, they were the starting points. The character of Helen is a creation of a story I wanted to tell. The other element of the story came from living next to Westminster, one of the largest Vietnamese communities outside of Vietnam. I was very interested in the stories of immigration to the U.S. after the war. The story of the Vietnamese became equally compelling to me.


2) In your book the protagonist, Helen Adams, is a strong character, a woman driven by the need to make some sense of her brother's death, and also to realize her ambitions as a combat photographer. How does her drive compare with your own? How much of you is in Helen?

TS: I am a great admirer of the adventure narratives of Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene, and, well, because I am a woman, I wanted to write something where a woman was the main character. More than that, I wanted the woman to be complex, to have flaws, to grapple with big issues. In terms of finding a narrative stance, a woman in the particular setting of Vietnam during the war is a natural outsider, and that is a viewpoint that provides a perspective that allowed me to explore the issues I wanted to.


3) You realistically portray what it may have been like for the first woman photojournalist trying to record the Vietnam War. Are there prominent women combat photographers today, or is it still considered a profession for men?

TS: It is still a profession primarily of men, although I read that up to a fourth of the photojournalists in Iraq are female, so there has been a significant change. A few of the women that I have read about, Stephanie Sinclair, Andrea Bruce Woodall, Stacy Pearsall, and especially the late Margaret Moth, are especially prominent in the field. But when you read interviews of them, the issues that they deal with, the reasons that they do the work, are little changed from Vietnam.


4) You have included an extensive bibliography at the back of this book, and obviously did a lot of research for this book. How affecting was the research? How were you able to handle the horrors of war on an emotional level?

TS: It does affect you. I read Vietnam books, mostly non-fiction, for over a year, including books by Vietnamese writers about the war, but also about history and culture. The unrelenting violence, the suffering, the waste, were hard to stay with for that long of a period, and I did feel a real sadness. Even now it drives me crazy how the media ignores coverage of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. If our troops are there, shouldn't that stay in the forefront of the news? The biggest thing I've learned personally is that most of us don't know the first thing about real hardship. People endured so much then, all sides, anyone in that country, and I've tried to be really grateful for the ordinary joys of life.


5) On a lighter note, when a Vietnamese restaurant opened near to us, I was pleased, and soon became ecstatic because my kids actually liked the food as well. Reading your book, I had cravings for pho, mentioned several times, as well as other Vietnamese food. Do you have a favorite Vietnamese dish?

TS: Exactly! The ordinary joys of life. I have a local restaurant that specializes in Vietnamese baked catfish. If you come in a group, the fish that arrives is as big as your table! Then you wrap pieces in rice paper or lettuce, add herbs and sauce. This is making me hungry.


6) In addition to your writing, you also teach writing workshops. What advice do you think is most valuable for aspiring writers, especially women?

TS: I always tell my students that they have to develop both a regular writing AND reading schedule. It's so important to read everything, to see what has been done, what can be done, to join the dialogue of contemporary writing. That's absolutely essential in developing one's voice. The best writers in my classes are always the ones who are well-read.


7) Are you working on another book or project, and if so, can you tell us something about it?

TS: I am deep into a novel set on a citrus farm in contemporary Southern California. I purposely wanted to give myself very different technical challenges than in The Lotus Eaters. That's what keeps me getting up in the morning for the years of work it takes to complete a book.


Thank you, Tatjana! I enjoyed learning about "the story" behind the story, and appreciate your thoughtful answers. I expect to see The Lotus Eaters on the NY Times bestseller list before too long. Please keep me posted about the book you're currently working on.

Special thanks to Lisa from TLC for helping to arrange this interview. For more reviews of this book, visit the other stops on TLC's The Lotus Eaters book tour. Please visit my review for an opportunity to win a copy of The Lotus Eaters. Comments welcomed.

The Lotus Eaters: Review and Giveaway

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear."
~Ambrose Redmoon

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli is the story of a brave, young woman, Helen Adams, an untrained but talented photojournalist who travels to Vietnam during the war years, determined to somehow understand more about the death of her brother, who died as a soldier there. As the first woman combat photographer, Helen is teased and not taken seriously by some of the men in the profession, but she manages to persevere.

Published in 2010, Tatjana Soli's debut novel starts with the fall of Saigon in 1975, and goes back in time to Helen's arrival in Vietnam 12 years earlier. Helen is seduced by the beauty of this country in Southeast Asia, with its azure skies and white sand beaches, and also by the Vietnam War (1959 - 1975) itself. For many combat photographers, including Helen, the war is like a drug, a source of adrenaline, fueled by risk and the closeness and presence of death, which give a new, heightened urgency to life. Like the lotus-eaters in Homer's Odyssey, who become addicted to the narcotic fruit and forget about returning home, Helen and other combat photographers become intoxicated by the war in Vietnam and find it hard to leave, even though they risk their lives by staying. In fact, they become adrenaline junkies, who thrive on the excitement, which is followed by brief moments of relief at their survival. In this state, Helen begins a love affair with a seasoned photojournalist, Sam Darrow, and a friendship with his assistant, an enigmatic Vietnamese man, Linh, and the story unfolds.

While I have read literature about World War II, this was my first novel about the Vietnam War, in which 3 to 4 million Vietnamese, 1.5 to 2 million Laotians and Cambodians, and about 60,000 American soldiers lost their lives. For me, it's always difficult to read about the devastation of war, although the writing in The Lotus Eaters is beautiful, and the story kept me up reading late at night (so much so that I became temporarily nocturnal). The author uses descriptive language, but she doesn't overdo it, so my imagination was ignited. Although I struggled to get through some of the violent parts--injury and death are omnipresent--I was rewarded by a rich and layered reading experience, by images as uncompromising and haunting as war photographs in Life magazine. Like the characters in the novel--Helen, Darrow, Linh, Robert, Matt, and others--I was fascinated and repulsed simultaneously by the events in this affecting book. (After reading The Lotus Eaters, I may need to read a sweet romance, or an English novel about manners, to recuperate from my Vietnam adventure.) Along with the violence, destruction, and death, Helen finds love, and a real sense of purpose in life.

Above all else, The Lotus Eaters is a story about courage. A story about a young woman who breaks into a field previously off-limits for women. A story about a woman who risks her life to give the world an honest look at the atrocities of war, and a few glimpses of humanity. A story about a woman who chooses to love, even though she is not sure that she will live to see another day. The Lotus Eaters is a riveting novel about having courage and hope even in the worst circumstances.

The author is generously offering a copy of The Lotus Eaters as a giveaway (U.S./Canada only).

• To enter this giveaway, simply leave a comment.
• For an extra chance at winning, become a follower of this blog, or let me know that you're already a follower.
• For an additional chance, post about this contest on your blog, Facebook, or Twitter.

Enter by 5 PM PDT on Monday, April 26. The winner will be chosen randomly and announced on Tuesday, April 27. Good luck!


Special thanks to Lisa from TLC for the opportunity to review an advance readers' edition of this novel (which is why I didn't choose a quote from the book; it's not the final version). For more reviews of this book, visit the other stops on TLC's The Lotus Eaters book tour. Please stay tuned for an upcoming exclusive interview with Tatjana Soli.




The Lotus Eaters counts toward the Women Unbound Reading Challenge hosted by Aarti, Care, and Eva.

Wondrous Words Wednesday

Wondrous Words Wednesday, hosted by Kathy from Bermudaonion's Weblog, is a very enjoyable meme. Today's words are from England and Vietnam.

1. gobsmacked: completely astounded, shocked (British slang)

I came across this wonderful word in a recent review on Vivienne's book blog, Serendipity. Vivienne, who lives in England, uses it in reference to the book Brooklyn by Colm Tibin: "I was utterly gobsmacked by this book." I adore the sound of this word, and Vivienne's review has piqued my interest in Brooklyn.


2. pho: Phở (fuh)- Vietnamese beef noodle soup

It takes a long time to simmer a good pot of pho--sometimes 10 or more hours! I found this word in the book I'm currently reading, an advanced copy of The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli. Undoubtedly, many if not most of you already know what pho is, because pho restaurants are opening up everywhere. So while this word isn't really new to me, I've never seen it in a book before, and it is wondrous--and quite delicious. My favorite soup, Pho Rau Cai (pictured), has vegetables and tofu.


What wondrous new words have you encountered during recent reading?