“Her mother believed that love, in its most noble and worthy form, was sacrifice. To love her was to love purgatory.”

FDR 310. Pilchers Hill, Geilston Bay, March 2021.

The Coconut Children by Vivian Pham

It strikes me that this is the first novel that I have read by (and about) the Vietnamese diaspora in Australia. This strikes me as absurd, given the size and potential fodder for literature. Given that author Vivian Pham is just 19 (and wrote the first draft of this at 16!), we may have plenty to look forward to in the future.

Given her relative youth, I'll forgive Pham for the odd anachronism of language and life in the heady years of the late-1990s. Similarly, while there's a touch more melodrama than I usually go for in dialogue, the ages and sensibilities of our central characters can reasonably account for that.

These details aside, I found The Coconut Children an impressive and enjoyable read. Given the intergenerational trauma at the heart of our key cast - Vietnamese 'boat people' set adrift in a foreign land - and the setting during the massive heroin glut of late-90s Cabramatta, there is plenty of scope for histrionics.

While I struggle to accept either the troubled Vince and innocent younger brother as fully-realised and believable characters, the sweetness of the morality tale and innocence of Sonny (our female lead) won me over. Even more so, the rich and vivid sounds, smell and tastes of the Vietnamese households and shops are so wonderfully evocative that Pham could have ramped up the melodrama further, and I would have run with it.

Despite tackling some pretty heavy topics (untreated trauma, familial violence, sexual abuse, addiction, poverty and neglect), there is an optimism and confidence that carries the reader through.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐  1/2