Twilight Territory

by Andrew X. Pham

The girl was sixteen, her frame as lithe as a dancer’s, her bearing as untutored as a child’s.

She is a child… why is this exceptable?! The author is writing about a man in his sixties… not to mention the author is a man as well… I’m disturbed. Global libraries that made this the read of the month, can we explain why?

two fingers hooking the straps of her student sandals. She did not check the room for overlooked items or pause to dress. Goose flesh appeared on her arms. His eyes followed her to the door. She paused at the threshold, glanced back once, a fleeting motion, and was gone. A fine gem, hard-won and well-cherished for a brief season. He had taken her virginity, nurtured her in his ways, taught her a few things about life and a number of things about sex, and left his marks on her. In his vanity, he might assert that she had developed, as some girls did, a little genuine affection for her master.

Student sandals! She’s sixteen and we are still talking about her naked body.

“Oh, Sister, you shouldn’t feel anything but joy. Think of all the girls he abused, the lives he ruined. It’s a blessing he’s gone.”

I’m glad he’s gone and that the author is showing that men who traffic and rape people are evil… but it doesn’t change that this male author detailed a naked teenage child’s body.

When Tuyet could not be truthful, she retreated into silence. She placed her hand in his and pressed her knuckles into his cupped palm, mortar and pestle, their private sign.

Two weeks earlier, at the Resistance camp in the mountains, he had received news that Tuyet had delivered a healthy baby boy at the town’s hospital. She had told him that she would be staying with the adoptive family for a few weeks until the baby settled with the wet nurse. It had never occurred to her to have an abortion; perhaps, he thought, she had wanted him to urge her to keep the baby. He had never suggested it, and he had never told her of the storm that raged in his heart or of his vow of revenge.

Is this why this book was chosen? A man’s commentary on abortion? So… not only did she have to birth a baby that was the product of rape, but then she had to stay and nurse the baby for weeks before ultimately leaving the child with an adoptive family?!