The Talisman Child

The Golden Child Trilogy #1

by Cameron Macauley

Enslaved by the Khmer Rouge, Nhean Thavy survives starvation and forced labor until she joins the army disguised as a boy. But her battalion is wiped out by the Vietnamese and she escapes through a minefield to a refugee camp in Thailand. There she enacts a horrifying black magic ritual to create a "koan kroak"--the Talisman Child--to help her get to America. Koan guides and protects her, but he is jealous, and Thavy is driven to commit a love-crime for which she knows she cannot be forgiven, in this world or the next. Part I of The Golden Child Trilogy. Look for Part II, The Forest of Regrets.

232 pages, Paperback

First published November 4, 2014

About the author

Cameron Macauley has published short fiction in Prism International, The North American Review, The Sonora Review and Quick Fiction. After getting degrees in anthropology, psychology, and medical science, Cameron Macauley spent thirty years working in disaster relief and international health. During his career he has worked in a refugee camp in Thailand, a besieged city in Angola, a Yanomami Indian village in Brazil, and a mission hospital in Sumatra.

He teaches at James Madison University.

He has co-authored two novels with his father Robie Macauley: CITADEL OF ICE (2014), and THE ESCAPE OF ALFRED DREYFUS (2016), both from unpublished manuscripts found after Robie's death in 1995.

His short story collection is SIGHTSEEING IN HELL (2017).

Cameron is also the author of a supernatural adventure series, THE GOLDEN CHILD TRILOGY: THE TALISMAN CHILD (2014) and THE FOREST OF REGRETS (2015), and THE WARRIOR DEAD (2016). The complete trilogy is available in a single volume, UNBORN EVIL (2016).

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strange and very interesting novel about a Cambodian woman's encounter with the supernatural in a refugee camp in Thailand. The story opens as Thavy is recovering from a suicide attempt, after her son was kidnapped by her estranged husband. As she reminisces about her difficult life as a slave, a soldier and a refugee, we learn that she has been given a talisman which allows her to see into the future through the spirit of her dead son, whom she calls Koan. He is not always cooperative, however, and he is extremely jealous, so that when she has a second son, Koan becomes dangerously upset.

This story is interspersed with her life history, as she survives the Cambodian Genocide, escapes a rape attempt, travels across a devastated Cambodia with her older friend Sovany, and eventually volunteers to join the Khmer Rouge army rather than starve. She survives two battles against the Vietnamese before fleeing to a refugee camp in Thailand, where she joins the rebel army and is raped by her commanding officer. Eventually, with Koan's help, she finds her way to the USA and marries a Japanese professor.

In spite of all these traumatic experiences, Thavy is a strong, self-confident woman who struggles to maintain control over her life when everyone else--including Koan--wants to dominate her. She is a keen observer of people around her--although she lacks a sense of humor--and is focused on her own survival until her second son Sammy is born. After that, her obsession with Sammy becomes increasingly pathological.

This is a remarkable examination of the mind of a woman who has suffered but is doing everything she can to move forward in life. Although there is a prominent supernatural element, this is not a ghost story or a horror tale; in fact it is never entirely clear that Koan is anything but a figment of her imagination. It's more of an adventure story, with quite bit of military action as Thavy fights against the Vietnamese and becomes a pretty formidable soldier.

This intriguing book is the first part of the Golden Child Trilogy, part II being The Forest of Regrets, which is set in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, and part III The Warrior Dead, set in the African savannah. You can get the whole trilogy in one volume as Unborn Evil: The Complete Golden Child Trilogy.

I highly recommend it.