They Bloom at Night
by Trang Thanh Tran
Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted February 26, 2025
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I received a free digital review copy of this book from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. It will be released next Tuesday, March 4.
Trang Thanh Tran's second novel is set in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, which is a real place, but the community of Mercy is fictional. The protagonist is Nhung "Noon" Lê, a sixteen year old Vietnamese-American living with their mother on the fishing trawler Wild Things. Their father and brother died during Hurricane Arlene, and since then a red algae bloom has encroached on the waters of the delta, and many others have gone missing. Nhung's mother is convinced her husband and son are still alive, even if reincarnated. Some of the missing may have left the area without revealing where, perhaps thinking no one else would care or worry about them. Some may have drowned or died from other accidents. Or, is it possible Nhung's mother is right, that the sea has taken them, using the algae bloom to transform them?
One of the few businesses still open is Jimmy's Gator Swamp Tour and Emporium, which consists of a fleet of airboats that take tourists around the swamps, but there aren't many tourists lately. Jimmy also has cages of various swamp creatures, and is on the lookout for others, since he believes in the "monsters" being created by the algae bloom. He wants Nhung to go looking for some, sending his daughter Covey along. Covey is also concerned about the disappearances, one of whom is her mother. She insists all of them happened in or around Port Mercy, so objects to Nhung wanting to go into the gulf, beyond the bloom, but they are shrimpers, and need to fish to survive, over and above what Jimmy wants of them. They are caught in a storm, her mother thinks she sees her lost family in the water, and in trying to subdue her, Nhung is knocked overboard. Covey dives in to save them, but Nhung fears they are already contaminated. While underwater they thought they had been grabbed by something with powerful arms, and also thought they heard something calling them to "let us in let us in let us in".
I generally like first-person narration, when it is done well, but most are in past tense. You can assume the narrator is saying "this is what happened," even if you can't be sure they reveal all the details. As with their first novel, Tran writes in present tense, which is doubly confusing. How can Nhung be telling us the story as it is happening? Are we in their head, listening to their stream-of-consciousness? All that aside, the story is still well told, compelling, and frightening. On another occasion, Covey is the one who falls (or is pulled) into the water, with Nhung jumping in to save her, even though they had never learned to swim. The dream sequence they experience before waking (or is it someone else's memories?) is of Covey as a young girl in a tree, then catching her as she jumps. Whatever has been taking people, perhaps transforming them, may be connected to something Nhung's mother believed. I googled the name of a particular deity, which seems to be fictional, but for the sake of the story let's assume Sông is a spirit of the water. Sông is Vietnamese for river. It may only be a concept believed by a limited number of people, maybe only those Vietnamese boat people who survived to make it to a new life in a new country, maybe only by Nhung's mother. Life did begin in the water after all, so it may be possible the water wants us back.
Even if Nhung has been contaminated, it doesn't mean they are not still somewhat human. They have their memories, some good, some bad, and also their hopes and dreams. They never worked on the trawler until after their father was gone, since he insisted it was only for men, so of course that was what doomed their brother. They had had to live with their mother's condemning attitude after losing their virginity at Mercy Cove, the popular teen hangout, two years before. They hated that experience too, even if they welcomed it beforehand. Nhung "became a woman" even before knowing what that meant, even before knowing if that is what they wanted. What are they now, after being transformed? Are they lesbian like Covey, perhaps trans like Saffy, or just non-binary like their childhood friend Wilder? Another thing they are not sure of is whether they should ever go into the water again. In spite of my slightly negative comments on the narrative form, I do recommend this. I look forward to other work by Tran in the future.
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