A Good Scent from A Strange Mountain (1992) by Robert Olen Butler

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

A Good Scent from A Strange Mountain (1992)

by Robert Olen Butler

Lake Charles, Louisiana

Louisiana: 25/30

    I'm not sure when exactly it became a problem for an author of one race to write an entire book in the voice of a second race of which he or she is a member, but clearly it was a not problem in 1992, when A Good Scent from A Strange Mountain, which is a collection of short stories about the Vietnamese immigrant experience in Louisiana as told by a white guy whose qualification is (checks notes) being an American soldier in Vietnam during the war.  Aside from that small issue this is an enjoyable collection of short stories about the Vietnamese immigrant experience in and around New Orleans.   I did frequently wince when it came to Butler writing about these characters IN Vietnam or when it came to the characters talking about non-Christian Vietnamese spiritual identity.