"Mysteries and Offerings" by Sue Guiney (2015, from Cooked Up Food Fiction From Around the World edited by Elaine Chiew)

Posts On The Work and Novels of Sue Guiney 

"Joy is something we need more of, especially in my country. Sometimes I worry that there is an illness eating away at us, like a disease in the root of a tree. We Cambodians were so strong and proud long ago. Now there is a weakness that we cannot overcome. Not without the help of others. It is a great sadness that we all feel, even though we do not show it. It is there behind our smiles, lurking so close to the surface of our laughter."

I love short stories and food, not necessarily in that order, so I was elated to be given a D R C of a forthcoming very soon anthology devoted to short stories centering on food. I was delighted to see that  Cooked Up Food Fiction From Around the World edited and introduced by Elaine Chiew contains stories  by Rachel Fenton and Sue Guiney.  I have previously posted on two of Rachel Fenton's wonderful short stories and she kindly did a very interesting Q and A session on my blog.  Sue Guiney helped me do something relatively unique of which I am proud.  She conducts for at risk Cambodia children fiction workshops in which participants express themselves in English through stories and poems drawn from their experiences.  (A mastery of English is essential for professional success). I was given the honor of publishing many of these very moving works.  I have also read and posted on two of Sue Guiney's set in Cambodia novels, both of which I highly recommend. I was also happy to see a short story by Krys Lee included, having enjoyed one of her works a while ago.  The diversely selected other contributors all have very interesting bios. I have already posted on Elaine Chiew's story, dealing with Singaporean food culture, "Run of the Molars" and "Food Bank" by Rachel Fenton.

Today I want to spotlight a very good story by Sue Guiney.  She has a vast knowledge and hands on experience of Cambodian culture.  "Mysteries and Offerings" is set in a medical clinic where the poor can go for help.  The medical staff are western volunteers, the staff workers are Cambodians.  Readers of Sue's novels will be, I know I am eagerly looking forward to more of her set in Cambodia books, happy to be back in the clinic.   The clinic has a strong family feel, the doctors are a long way from home and the employees have bonded strongly with them through their work.  The story begins as Christmas Day approaches.  The staff wants to put on a sumptuous Christmas feast for the doctors, of course this is a first experience for the Cambodians. It was great fun to follow the preparation for the dinner.  Guiney does such a great job describing the preparations that I felt I could actually smell the delicious items being prepared.  

I hope to read and post on a few more stories from Cooked Up Food Fiction From Around the World edited by Elaine Chiew in June.  I recommend this anthology to all lovers of the form and if you are a foodie at all, you will love it.

Author Bio

Sue Guiney is an American writer and educator living in London. She has published two poetry collections and three novels and has had work published in literary journals on both sides of the

Atlantic. She was the Writer-in-Residence in the SE Asian Department of the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). Although Sue has written widely on a variety of subjects, most of her work and inspiration now comes from Cambodia. She has founded a creative writing workshop for at-risk children called ‘Writing Through Cambodia’, where she spends several months a year teaching. Sue is writing a series of novels set in modern-day, post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia, the latest of which, Out of the Ruins, was published in 2014.

For sure I hope to feature more of the work of Sue Guiney going forward. 

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Out of the Ruins by Sue Guiney (2014, Ward Wood Publishing)

Out of the Ruins is the second novel, both set in Cambodia, by Sue Guiney I have had the pleasure of reading.  Here is part of what I said about the first of her novels, Clash of Innocents:

A Clash of innocents is a beautifully written, heart warming very insightful story centering on the lives of a sixty year old woman from Ohio running an orphanage in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, a volunteer, Amanda, with a mysterious past, an Australian mine sweeper, and a wonderfully realized cast of children plus a few other fascinating persons.

I would not really call Out of the Ruins a sequel to Clash of  Innocents but several of the people we got to know and like in Guiney's first novel are back.  The orphanage director, Kyle the Australian, and several of the children, grown a bit older delightfully return.  The story centers on a women's free health center volunteer doctors  start up in Siem Reap, Cambodia.  There are really three important new characters, two are doctors volunteering their time and one is a clinic director.  I said before, it is often a restless spirit or a deep sadness with your own culture that takes people from first world comfort and even luxury to move, even for a while, to the third world.  Part of the mystery and intrigue of Out of the Ruins, is seeing this emerge.  One of the doctor's has a terrible secret and the other finds love  where they never expected it.  We also see the different and shifting expectations the people in the novel have of each other and the ways very different cultural backgrounds shape expectations.

It was a lot of fun to see the shaky start of the clinic, especially to see how one of the late teenage girls from the orphanage helped get the first patients by almost dragging pregnant women in off the streets.  Guiney is very good at letting us see how their circumstances cause the characters's to develop.  

There is romance, excitement, medical emergencies and scenes of the dark side of Cambodia, child prostitution in Out of the Ruins.  At first the ending shocked me but then I started to think about it and it made sense.  

I greatly enjoyed this book and hope to read numerous more novels by Sue Guiney.  

You can learn more about Sue and her writing work shops with at risk children in Cambodia on her web page

http://sueguiney.com/

I have posted  twenty stories and poems by students from her workshop and hope to post more.

From the publisher's web page

Out of the Ruins begins with one Cambodian doctor’s frustration over how the poor women in his country are dying needlessly. He reaches out to friends to help him create a new clinic for the local villages around Siem Reap’s world famous temples, and they answer his call.

Irish Dr Diarmuid arrives with his English assistant, Dr Gemma, and Canadian administrator Mr Fred. Together they create a place where the poor women of Cambodia can find the basic care that so much of the world has long since taken for granted.

The young and ambitious Cambodian nurse Srey acts as interpreter and doorway into the trust of the local community, but her idealised view of western medicine will be seriously shaken.

Tradition collides with science as East meets West, and though the doctors are all too eager to help, they have much to learn about their own personal demons in this desperate and seductive society.

Reviews for Sue Guiney’s first Cambodian novel A Clash of Innocents

Writer Sue Guiney finds beauty in the most desperate situations.

The Bangkok Post

You’ll want to read this book if you’ve been to Cambodia – you’ll understand a lot that you didn’t at the time. And you’ll want to read it if you’ve never been and never will. It’s just a story very well told.

John Burgess, author of A Woman of Angkor

A wonderful haunting novel that now rates as one of my favourites.

Lynda Renham, bestselling author of Pink Wellies and Flat Caps

This is a story that will grip you, with its very real and flawed protagonists and fascinating setting. I read the book straight through, I was utterly absorbed.

Tania Hershman, author of My Mother is an Upright Piano

Biography

Sue has lived in London for nearly twenty years where she writes and teaches fiction, poetry and plays. Her work has appeared in important literary journals on both sides of the Atlantic, and her first book, published by Bluechrome Publishing in 2006, is the text of her poetry play, Dreams of May and has now been relaunched by Ward Wood. which premiered in London’s Pentameters Theatre. Ward Wood has also publish her poetry collection Her Life Collected and her first Cambodian novel A Clash of Innocents

Expect to see much more of Sue Guiney on The Reading Life

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A Clash of Innocents by Sue Guiney (2010, 256 pages, Ward Wood Publishing).

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A Clash of innocents is a beautifully written, heart warming very insightful story centering on the lives of a sixty year old woman from Ohio running an orphanage in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, a volunteer, Amanda, with a mysterious past, an Australian mine sweeper, and a wonderfully realized cast of children plus a few other fascinating persons.

I have learned from reading and life that there are deep seated reasons that drive people from their western homeland to third or second world countries.  The working out of this was one of several things that fascinated me about Clash of Innocents.  Oscar Wilde famously said he never really felt Irish until he moved to London.  Citizens of colonial countries know that those who leave their home to move to a third world country, for the best or the worst of reasons, are often escaping from a trauma or a hatred of their home land.  No perfectly adjusted happy westerner gives up her or his comforts without a very powerful personal reason, often one they do not fully understand.  Many seek an answer to their differences from "normal" people at home in a place where people don't judge them by the old standards.  We see this for sure in the very troubled Amanda who shows up one day to volunteer.  Deborah knows lots of westerns, often Americans, show up to volunteer for a few days to score Karmic points or assuage feelings of guilt knowing the terrible suffering that America helped bring down on the people of Cambodia.  She has learned to just let the volunteers do simple things, let them donate, but not to count on them.  Amanda is different and soon becomes very much a part of life in the center.  

There is a lot of perfectly done dialogue in Clash of Innocents.  We learn a lot about life in Cambodia.  We get to know and care about the children in the home.  When Deborah's adopted daughter ponders whether or not she should go to Kent State University in Ohio, on a full scholarship, 

where Deborah graduated at the time of the Kent State Killing of students by the National Guard (1970) I was captivated waiting to see what will happen.  We also see Deborah's division when her daughter passes from adolescent to attractive young woman and feels any mother's worry and happiness. 

Guiney paints a marvelous portrait of the Cambodian countryside on a beach trip.  Her descriptions of food made me hungry.  This passage motivated me to look at my Lonely Planet Guide to Cambodia:

From this passage you can see for your self the marvelous prose style of the author. 

There is romance, tragedy, lots of good times and festivals in this work as well as fascinating minor characters.  

I was very glad to have read Clash of Innocents and I think most readers would feel the same way.

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I first got to know Sue when we talked about posting on The Reading Life  a series of twenty poems and short stories by children being helped by The Anjali House in Siem Reap, Cambodia.  This turned out to be one of the things I am most proud of in my 4.5 years of blogging.  

Master Link to All Project Related Posts

Sue Guiney's Introductory Post  -Project Director - contains important links 

My Overview of the Project

My Q and A with Dana Hui Lim author of Mother and the Tiger- A Memoir of the Killing Fields. - essential background information -also contains a link to my review of her superb book.

I am really looking forward to reading Sue's next book, also set in Cambodia, Out of the Ruins.

You can learn a lot more about Sue and her work on her blog

http://sueguiney.com/blog/

shauna Gilligan has just done a very interesting interview with Sue

http://shaunaswriting.com/wordpress/2014/01/out-of-the-ruins-sue-guiney-on-her-latest-novel/

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