Banyan Moon

The good news is that Cindy Kay, Catherine Ho, and Elyse Dinh-McCrillis each have distinct voices, helpful for enlivening Thai’s resonating debut—a Read with Jenna book club pick—featuring three generations of Vietnamese American women. Kay portrays daughter Ann, a pregnant graphic artist who leaves her philandering boyfriend to return home to the Banyan House when her beloved grandmother dies. Ho plays Ann’s mother Hương, who is emotionally estranged from Ann, despite a desperate longing for closeness. Dinh-McCrillis is grandmother Minh, who fled Vietnam to start again with two small children in Florida. Each woman, of course, has multilayered secrets to bear—and potentially bare. Easily distinguishable as the narrators are, they’re also rather miscast. Kay, with her fuller, unnecessarily urgent voice, would have been more appropriate as grandmother Minh, while Dinh-McCrillis, clearly younger, her tones lighter, would have been more fitting as Ann. More egregious is the audiobook’s sloppy direction, especially the jarring inconsistency in pronouncing the name Phước (Hương’s brother) by each narrator, Kay proving the most erratic.