Monique Truong: 3 books

Bitter in the Mouth is a brilliant, virtuosic novel about a young woman’s search for identity and the true meaning of family from the author of The Sweetest Fruits “What I know about you, little girl, would break you in two” are the prophetic last words that Linda Hammerick’s grandmother...

The Book of Salt serves up a wholly original take on Paris in the 1930s through the eyes of Binh, the Vietnamese cook employed by Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Viewing his famous mesdames and their entourage from the kitchen of their rue de Fleurus home, Binh observes their domestic entanglements...

How does Southern food look from the outside? The form is caught in constantly dueling stereotypes: It’s so often imagined as either the touchingly down-home feast or the heartstopping health scourge of a nation. But as any Southern transplant will tell you once they’ve spent time in the region,...