Banyan Moon: A Gothic Florida Family Saga by Thao Thai
In the swamplands of the Florida coast, a crumbling mansion called the Banyan House holds three generations of secrets in Thao Thai’s haunting debut novel.
Published in 2023, Banyan Moon follows three generations of Vietnamese American women, a grandmother, her daughter, and her granddaughter, bound together by the gothic, vine-choked house they share on the Florida coast. When the grandmother dies, the two younger women return to the Banyan House and to the buried secrets it keeps. Threaded through with the Vietnamese folktale of the man in the moon, carried into the sky by a magical banyan tree, the novel is a moving meditation on home, memory, and the bonds between mothers and daughters.
Lyrical, atmospheric, and steeped in the humid beauty of the Florida coast, it is one of the most acclaimed recent novels set in the state. A perfect read for anyone who loves a story with deep roots.
