All That's Left Unsaid is the debut novel of Australian author Tracey Lien.
The story is set during the 1990s in the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta. Cabramatta then and now has a large Vietnamese population, many of whom migrated to Australia as a result of the Vietnam War. During the mid-1980s to the late 1990s Cabramatta was known for drugs, gang wars and for the assassination of John Newman, who represented Cabramatta in the NSW State Parliament.
All That's Left Unsaid began with Ky Tran's family having been devasted by the recent death of her brother Denny while at a restaurant celebrating his high-school graduation with friends. Ky returned home from Melbourne where she was working as a journalist to support her family through the funeral and visits from their community, although very few family friends actually visited as they didn't want the Tran family's bad luck to rub off on them.
Ky's father asked her to find out what had happened to Denny, but when she learned from the police that her parents had not allowed them to carry out an autopsy she was furious. The police officer Ky spoke with gave her a list of the names of people who were at the restaurant at the time and she started interviewing them, although soon found that no one was willing to risk saying anything of use to her because of their fear of the gangs.
Ky found it impossible to believe that her brother, who had been nerdy, good-hearted and a brilliant student, had been involved with the heroin trade, but her investigations into Denny's death led her to doubt everything she thought she knew.
Most of the chapters followed Ky as she went about her investigation, but some followed other Vietnamese-Australian characters who were at the Lucky-8 Restaurant when Denny died.
Ky's frustrations with her own hard-working mother were echoed throughout the story in her frustration with the entire Vietnamese community. Ky and her mother butted heads constantly, partly because they were mother and daughter, but partly because of their very different life experiences. Ky's parents had been traumatised by the Vietnam war and by their time in refugee camps, but as migrants they remained fiercely loyal to Vietnamese culture and language, while Ky wanted to be Australian, speak English and fit into a broader Australian life.
Who murdered Denny was revealed to the reader about half way through the book, but learning why he was murdered didn't become known until the end of the story. Despite Denny's murder, the story is more about family relationships and the Vietnamese community in Cabramatta during the time the story was set. While I didn't feel emotional about any of the characters I did gain a better understanding of the fears that they had. I learned that in some circumstances parents use their children as interpreters because of their fear of being racially abused because of their own poor English, and that PSTD causes issues for generations to come. I learned that in Australia there were (and possibly still are) some places where parents tell their children to run home after school as fast as they can and when they get there, to lock the door behind them.
All That's Left Unsaid was a visit to an Australia that I didn't recognise, but one which was well worth the effort. I am looking forward to reading future books by this author.
My purchase of All That's Left Unsaid continues my New Year's resolution for 2023 to buy a book by an Australian author during each month of this year (February).
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