Around the World for a Good Book selection for Cambodia
Author: Vaddey Ratner
Title: Music of the Ghosts
Narrator: Jennifer Ikeda
Publication Info: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2017
Summary/Review:
As a child, Teera escaped the Khmer Rouge regime with her Aunt Amara, her only living relative. After Amara’s death, the 37-year-old Teera returns to Cambodia from the United States with her aunt’s ashes. She also has a letter from Tun, a man known by most other people in the novel as The Old Musician who lives at a monastery that Amara supported. He claims he has information about Teera’s father’s last days, and from his point of view the reader learns he carries great remorse for his actions as an idealistic member of the Khmer Rouge.
Teera meets a doctor and former monk named Narunn and they form a romantic relationship. They also begin to care for Lah, and orphan child who was left at the monastery. The nonlinear narrative frequently goes into the past lives of all these characters showing the incidents that shaped who they are in the present day. The details of the Cambodian genocide are unflinching and difficult to read, but all too important not to forget. Ultimately, this novel is a story of the survivors of great trauma that deals with atonement, forgiveness, persistence, and found family.
Recommended books:
- What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad
- The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar
Rating: *****
Panorama of the Mountains 