Debut author Philip Huynh joins us on the ALU blog to share his collection The Forbidden Purple City, which includes nine compelling stories about the Vietnamese diaspora. With the urban realism of a David Bezmozgis novel and the hard-hitting visuals of a David Fincher film–this collection is a stunning first for Huynh and one you won’t want to miss out on.
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What: The Forbidden Purple City (Goose Lane Editions)Who: Philip Huynh was born in Vancouver to parents who had fled Vietnam during the civil war. He is the winner of the Open Season Award from the Malahat Review, a Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award, and the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop Emerging Writers Award. A practicing lawyer, he lives in Richmond, BC.Â
Why you need to read this now:This stunning nine-story collection from rising star Philip Huynh dives headfirst into the Vietnamese diaspora. Each of Hunyh’s stories is entrancing, secretive, and compelling in their varied viewpoints. From a man returning to Hoi An in his retirement to compose a poem for his parents, to how a young bride finds community in a group of abalone divers, to a son remembering when he discovered the truth about his father’s business. There are ostracized teenagers from a private school who forge a bond, and a woman who assists her son’s teacher despite the jealousy of her husband.An actor reminisces about his scheming father whose enthusiasm never wanes about business ventures in Vancouver, while working as a short-order cook. Despite the years, he never returns to visit but calls and listens to his father and his new ideas, punctuated by the coughing that indicated his worsening health.A mother struggles to find her bearings, picking up more Cantonese than English, and wishes they had moved to Montreal. The French language reminds her of everything she is fond of in Vietnam, to the point where it takes her back home more than Vietnamese. She enrolls her son in a Catholic school so he learns French and begins to assist the teacher with the sometimes unruly children while her husband studies for a degree.A young man disagrees with his girlfriend over meeting her parents at lunch. A client demands an update on her permanent residency application, filed after she arrived in New Jersey for her arranged marriage, and while following the client around to garner information for the case, he realizes it’s time for lunch. In a fit of pique, he decides to take the client to the restaurant at the same time to watch from another table. After a disagreement with his girlfriend regarding their relationship status, they search throughout the city for a turkey for a gathering while simultaneously debating their differences and similarities.In The Forbidden Purple City, the story that the title of the collection is drawn from, an old man organizing New Year’s celebrations escorts a pair of troublesome musicians to his friend’s house. His friend has not been the same since her husband passed away, and their work as concert promoters had changed, leaving him with the bulk of the work. He reminisces about their life when both spouses were alive and they were all together in Hue, the old imperial capital in central Vietnam before the Communists came.X+YIt’s like the urban realism of fellow diaspora author David Bezmozgis with the gripping visual storytelling of a David Fincher film (Seven, Fight Club, Gone Girl, The Social Network).
* * *Special thanks to Nathaniel at Goose Lane and Philip Huynh for sharing The Forbidden Purple City with us!Read more First Fiction Friday >>
