A missionary doctor pines for his native New England even as he succumbs to the vibrant chaos of nineteenth-century Siam. A post-World War II society woman marries, mothers, and holds court, little suspecting her solitary fate. A jazz pianist in the age of rock, haunted by his own ghosts, is summoned to appease the house's resident spirits. In the present, a young woman tries to outpace the long shadow of her political past. And in a New Krungthep yet to come, savvy teenagers row tourists past landmarks of the drowned old city they themselves do not remember. Time collapses as these lives collide and converge, linked by the forces voraciously making and remaking the amphibious, ever-morphing capital itself.
In parts it was evocative of Bangkok. The sounds you hear walking the streets, the people (friendly and gracious on the outside, greedy and voracious inside), the food. Some vignettes were better than others. Some I didn't work out how they connected until later in the book.
Not a quick read. I frequently had to put it down and walk away for a bit.
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