About the Book:

For seven-year-old Raami, the shattering end of childhood begins with the footsteps of her father returning home in the early dawn hours bringing details of the civil war that has overwhelmed the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Soon the family’s world of carefully guarded royal privilege is swept up in the chaos of revolution and forced exodus.     Over the next four years, as she endures the deaths of family members, starvation, and brutal forced labor, Raami clings to the only remaining vestige of childhood—the mythical legends and poems told to her by her father. In a climate of systematic violence where memory is sickness and justification for execution, Raami fights for her improbable survival. Displaying the author’s extraordinary gift for language, In the Shadow of the Banyan is testament to the transcendent power of narrative and a brilliantly wrought tale of human resilience.

Book Review:  ★★★★★★

Some stories are fun to read, simply because they are escapist in nature.  Some are fun to read because the characters become friends and enemies, without the reader ever realizing it.  And sometimes we find a book fun to read because it deals with a topic we are interested in.  But in the case of some stories — because of the harrowing and deeply personal nature of the story — the only way it can be told is in novel form.  That is the nature of this book — and that feeling of deeply harrowing personal experience resonates throughout this amazing story.

The haunting voice of the the seven year old Raami leaves the reader feeling raw and deeply troubled.  Not so much for the inhumanity that men are capable of inflicting on others around them — but of the cold indifference of men to others who may not share their opinions and ideologies.  And when combined with the seven year old perception of a child, struggling to understand the unfathomable the book becomes a powerful testament to the dangerous nature of extremism, and the brutality of ideologies on mankind.

With every page the reader’s heart breaks with bewildered sorrow at the incomprehensible purpose behind the dangerous regime of the Khmer Rouge.  As the story develops the beauty of the Cambodian culture resonates, particularly when it struggles to survive the oppressive blanket of  communism that brutally and indiscriminately destroys the people of the Cambodian cities.  This book looks closely at the violence perpetuated in the name of belief.  It also looks at the devastation left in the wake of this kind of troubling absolutist thinking, not only within families, but also in a nation as a whole.  But in the end it is also the story of the painful loss of a child’s family, innocence, and faith in mankind.  And yet — even when everything else has been stripped away, the will to survive sustains an individual through the most devastating of events, even when the body wants desperately to quit.

At the end of it all, Ratner’s story always maintains a deeply personal feel, and the reader is always aware that there is more than creative license behind this book.  Overall the book tells a story of the author’s painful struggle to survive in the wake of a devastating genocide, which received little recognition in the public eye.  The reader feels the reality of Ratner’s emotion, even while they try to convince themselves that it is only fiction — but knowing from beginning to end that this book has its roots in history — and a troubling history at that.

If for no other reason than to expose the horrifying crimes of a corrupt revolutionary regime, this book is a must read.  But beyond that the painful picture of the family, and the intense relationships between the characters haunt the reader.  Their strengths and weaknesses, in all the good and bad is presented not as a commentary on men in general — but as a tribute to those who became victims to this atrocity.  This is a book that whether you love it or you hate it — it is impossible to put it down.

Tags: Cambodia, Family, Friendship, Genocide, Government, Grief, Historical Fiction, Khmer Rouge, Loss, Love, Memory, Morality, Murder, Suffering, Survivor

Category: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Philosophy, Politics