Invisible Girl
By Tess Hudson
Suspense, memory & the Vietnam War: What is truth?
Without any hesitation, this is
one if the two best
books I have read in many years!
In the
prologue, a Vietnamese woman named Mai falls off a bridge over New
York's East River. To complicate matters, Maggie Malone's less than
savory brother shows up at his sister's doorstep beaten to a pulp. The
only way for either of them to stay safe is to hunt down the secrets of
their father's past as a Vietnam vet and track down the current elusive
killers. The more they discover the more secrets emerge.
In Invisible
Girl
the shifts between several scenes of past and present layer the
suspense and the depth of the characters. The deep, eternal love of Mai
and Jimmy Malone grows in the midst of the hell fires of the Vietnam
war. Maggie's childhood memories of her mother Mai help her to
understand her elusive father. In the present, Maggie and Danny try to
hunt down the identity of the dangerous shadowy killers.
Ghost
images haunt this novel...in Mai, of course but also at the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial. The memorial image widens our view of veterans and
war and how war affects so many people.
Invisible
Girl
is an important book for our times. Although the past Vietnam war is an
axis for the plot, courage and truth are an endless values in any age.
I love books that grab me on a spiritual level without preaching. I
love American history and politics that do not preach. I tire of the
endless slogans and slanted statements of both sides and want something
more --- something that speaks to the our identity beyond party and
time but to something more substantial in our history, something
truthful ---both heroic and not so heroic. In the past, women seemed to
provide a moral compass for this country long before they achieved the
vote. After completing this novel, I was left wondering about women's
literature and whether it speaks to our hearts as Americans in ways
politicians never will. It doesn't preach, it doesn't solve our current
issues....but it reaches our hearts and souls as Americans in a place
beyond politics. Sometimes true love, both for a man and a country, is
eternal. Sometimes, our true American heroes are not the most obvious
or newsworthy.
Some
book club points of discussion:
1.What
is the difference between a hero and a heroine? Can a woman be a hero?
If so, who is the hero (or heroes) of this novel?
2.How
does the invisible girl guide the plot structure?
3.
Is
Jimmy Malone a patriot? Why?
4.
How
does memory add to this novel?
5.
Where do you see images of ghosts and what do they add to this novel?
6.
The
Vietnam Veterans Memorial includes the names of all those who were
killed during the Vietnam war. What characters does Tess Hudson
memorialize in her description of the wall?
7.
How
does this novel, set in the a specific period of American history,
speak to you the reader today?
Merrimon Book
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