Thien, Madeline

Certainty: A Novel

Madeleine Thien's stunning debut novel hauntingly retells a crucial moment in history, through two unforgettable love stories. Gail Lim, a producer of radio documentaries, is haunted by the mystery of her father's Asian past.

As a child, Gail's father, Matthew Lim, lived in a Malaysian village occupied by the Japanese. He and his beloved Ani wandered the jungle fringe under the terrifying shadow of war. The war shattered their families, splitting the two apart until a brief reunion years later. Matthew's profound connection to Ani and the life-changing secrets they shared cast a shadow that, later still, Matthew's wife, Clara, desperately sought to understand.

Gail's journey to unravel the mystery of her parents' lives takes her to Amsterdam, where she unearths more about this mysterious other woman. But as Gail approaches the truth, Ani's story will bring Gail face-to-face, with the untold mysteries of her own life.

Vivid, poignant, and written in understated yet powerful prose, CERTAINTY is a novel about the legacies of loss, the dislocations of war, and the timeless redemption afforded by love.

Simple Recipes: Stories

The seven stories in Simple Recipes, 26-year-old Madeleine Thien's debut collection, show an imaginative depth and sympathetic wisdom beyond her years. The title story is a deceptively simple tale of a girl remembering how her father used to cook rice: sorting and cleaning, then measuring the water by resting the tip of his index finger on the surface of the rice so that the water reached the bend of his first knuckle. Her father impresses his young daughter with the dexterous way in which he magically transforms a few ingredients into something that satisfies basic needs and sustains life. When those same skillful hands turn violent, though, and beat her rebellious older brother, the daughter struggles to hold onto the memory of the kitchen ritual she shared with her father as it shatters into metaphors for abuse, intolerance, and shame.

Another story, "Alchemy," conveys a complex friendship between school-age girls, as one seeks to understand love and the other contends with an eating disorder and sexual abuse at home. The dynamic between these girls is subtly described and never overstated. Revelations, when they come, are as startling, complex, and mysterious as in real life. Thien is a genuine talent to watch. --Nigel Hunt

With delicate language and wisdom, Madeleine Thien explores the longing of families pulled apart by conflicts between generations, cultures, and values.

Each of these stories captures a deeply personal world in which characters struggle to reconcile family loyalty with individual desires. In "House," a 10-year-old girl longs for the alcoholic mother who left the house one day never to return. In "Dispatch," a woman tries to hold her marriage together even after finding proof that her husband is in love with someone else. In "A Map of the City," a young woman's troubled relationship with her father overshadows the course she takes in her adult life.

Thien's fresh perspective and spare, haunting prose have already won her prizes and the praise of established masters. Simple Recipes is the beginning of a luminous writing career.

Simple Recipes : Stories

“How simple it should be. Warm water running over, the feel of the grains between your hands, the sound of it like stones running along the pavement. My father rinsed the rice over and over, sifting it between his fingertips, searching for the impurities, pulling them out. A speck, barely visible, resting on the tip of his finger.” – from the title story

Simple Recipes marks the exciting literary debut of Madeleine Thien, who has been singled out as one of the most impressive new young talents in Canada.

The seven stories in this haunting collection circle around and through the territory of family relationships – often within families that have splintered – and examine the experience of alienation, weaving in the conflict between generations and cultures.

A young woman searches back in time for the pivotal moment when her family lost faith in itself. Two sisters station themselves across the street from their family home, now sold, hoping that their mother, whom they have not seen in a year, will appear one last time. A wife becomes obsessed with someone she discovers her husband has loved since childhood. A high school student discovers the abuse that may lie beneath a friend’s possessiveness. A woman relives the familiar ceremony of food preparation and the moment when her unconditional love for her father was called into question.

At once introspective and revealing, Madeleine Thien’s delicate prose resonates with undeniable power. Her characters in one way or another want to make amends, to understand the events that have shaped their lives. Madeleine Thien is a striking new voice in literary fiction.

Jene Sehnsucht nach Gewissheit

Certainty

Certainty