Banyan Moon

A Novel

By: Thao Thai

Narrated by: Cindy Kay, Catherine Ho, Elyse Dinh

A TODAY Show #ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick

"A riveting mother-daughter tale." — Elle

""Radiant. … An intimate account of one family’s planting of roots in American soil and the sacrifices great and small that each member makes along the way.” — Washington Post

A sweeping, evocative debut novel following three generations of Vietnamese American women reeling from the death of their matriarch, revealing the family’s inherited burdens, buried secrets, and unlikely love stories.

When Ann Tran gets the call that her fiercely beloved grandmother, Minh, has passed away, her life is already at a crossroads. In the years since she’s last seen Minh, Ann has built a seemingly perfect life—a beautiful lake house, a charming professor boyfriend, and invites to elegant parties that bubble over with champagne and good taste—but it all crumbles with one positive pregnancy test. With both her relationship and carefully planned future now in question, Ann returns home to Florida to face her estranged mother, Huơng.

Back in Florida, Huơng is simultaneously mourning her mother and resenting her for having the relationship with Ann that she never did. Then Ann and Huơng learn that Minh has left them both the Banyan House, the crumbling old manor that was Ann’s childhood home, in all its strange, Gothic glory. Under the same roof for the first time in years, mother and daughter must face the simmering questions of their past and their uncertain futures, while trying to rebuild their relationship without the one person who’s always held them together.

Running parallel to this is Minh’s story, as she goes from a lovestruck teenager living in the shadow of the Vietnam War to a determined young mother immigrating to America in search of a better life for her children. And when Ann makes a shocking discovery in the Banyan House’s attic, long-buried secrets come to light as it becomes clear how decisions Minh made in her youth affected the rest of her life—and beyond.

Spanning decades and continents, from 1960s Vietnam to the wild swamplands of the Florida coast, Banyan Moon is a stunning and deeply moving story of mothers and daughters, the things we inherit, and the lives we choose to make out of that inheritance.

©2023 Thao Thai (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers

The Beauty of Different Cultures in the United States

I always love hearing stories about people leaving their homelands & culture, and how they have adapted and worked so hard for their generations that follow, to have a better than the have had. Their following generations have equally interesting stories, becoming bicultural, then you know most of the next generations will likely adapt to life with American culture, in this book anyway.

Beautifully written, superb narration

A lovely story, heartfelt, heart wrenching but also heart mending. The narration is absolutely perfect.

Great weaving of stories

Loved the stories of 3 women woven into each other and how it leads to present day. Fantastic read.

worrh reading a mother's tale

A straightforward mother daughter story. Good characters and plot progress. endless similiies distracting - like an angry cat hissing at an empty corner. Good start from a new writer.

Wonderful story

Liked the story. Messy just as we all are. Would have loved to see that old house

The women are who matter in this story

This story was about these women. The men were just an aside. I like they ended up strong and independent and happy on their own.

Intergenerational family of strong women

Beautiful story of 3 generations of women whose lives are fraught with struggle, grief and love.

Found it slow

I Found the Banyan Moon book to be slow. Not a favorite book for my taste.

Real book is amazing

This is a literary fiction so be ready for that journey! I have the actual book and the Audible. I went back and forth between listening and reading. The book itself reads so much better than the audible does. It’s wordy, but so descriptive and well written. The audible version loses the literary aspect, but you get a good sense of the story. A few times I had to go back and actually read and because I felt like the audible lost of of the story. Either way, it’s written so well and the character development is wonderful I’d never give it a star less than 5.

Mothers & Daughters

4 solid stars for Banyan Moon by Thao Thai. I liked this story about motherhood a lot. I've often felt that the relationship between a mother and daughter is one of the most complicated relationships human beings experience. This story moves back and forth through the lives of the grandmother, mother, and daughter in past to present. I found it both moving and memorable. The ending is something that will stay with me for awhile. I would definitely recommend.