![]() ![]() ![]() The reader gradually gleans connections between the stories in ingenious or sometimes convoluted ways. In some of the novel’s most thrilling and original sections, we follow ghost hunters from the Saigon Spirit Eradication Co in 2011, encounter a Vietnamese French schoolboy left on a mountain as the Japanese launch their coup in 1945, and meet a trio of childhood friends in the early 90s – the bland brothers Tan and Long, who pine for the headstrong and rather caricaturish Binh. Interwoven with Winnie’s story are spooky vignettes taking place in the days and decades before and after her vanishing. ![]() Neither white nor Asian enough to feel comfortable with either designation, Winnie’s biracial identity renders her a perpetual outsider burdened by microaggressions and self-loathing. mixed breeds, like she was, and dirty like she was too”. She feels an affinity neither with her expat colleagues nor the locals, but with the stray dogs who roam her street, “rangy and keen jawed and encrusted with ticks. Yet the self-effacing, anxious Winnie seems more intent on drowning her inhibitions in meaningless sex and lukewarm beer. Build Your House Around My Body is structured around the disappearance of 22-year-old Winnie, a Vietnamese American who arrives in Saigon in 2010 to teach English and ostensibly reconnect with her heritage. T he twin spectres of colonialism and sexualised violence lurk in the humid Vietnamese air as two-headed snakes slither underfoot in Violet Kupersmith’s marvellous and confounding debut novel. ![]()
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