Emily Clements

Since childhood, Emily Clements’ sense of self had always been shaped by the opinions of others and her need to be liked. When a stand-off with her best friend sees nineteen-year-old Emily stranded in Vietnam, she is alone for the first time&nbsp;and adrift in a new environment. With seemingly nothing to lose, she makes the biggest decision of her life – to stay. But Emily's&nbsp;attempts to bridge a yawning loneliness spur a&nbsp;downward spiral of recklessness, as&nbsp;she&nbsp;hurtles&nbsp;from one sexual encounter to the next. It will take a truly&nbsp;terrifying&nbsp;experience for her to understand that sex is both a weapon and a wound in her battle for self-worth and empowerment. Delicately interweaving the past and present, The Lotus Eaters is a sharply written story of self-redemption from an exciting young voice in Australian memoir that dissects the patterns of blame and shame women can form around their bodies and relationships.

The Lotus Eaters

linda

Someone recommended this book to me because I went to Vietnam this summer during my gap year. Emily’s Hanoi is not the Hanoi I knew, and I think Vietnam has modernized quite a bit since her time there. Foreigners are no longer that “foreign,” and I was fortunate to be part of a vibrant expat community. The Hanoi that I lived in had grand pianos in penthouse apartments (albeit across the street from a bánh cuốn stall).

However, Emily captures the vulnerability of being alone and abroad remarkably well: a lot of chutzpah and thirst for adventure mixed with naïveté and insecurity, all of which is compounded by loneliness. Young and eager, but not wise enough to know better. There is a really poignant scene in the book when a French singer tells Emily, “You are too innocent. I know it. I know it as soon as I see you. It is in your face. How old are you?“ And when I first read this line, I wondered how people could just tell.

In one of my favorite short stories, Jhumpa Lahiri quips, “[Sexy] means loving someone you don’t know.” Emily echoes this idea when she writes, “A stranger didn’t know my mind, didn’t know if I was smart or stupid or likable.” Emily’s relationships are not long or meaningful enough for her to be valued for her full worth, so they become transactional. 

Emily learns that even unwanted attention comes at a cost. “You don’t get it both ways. You can’t have him just want you and that be it. There’s a price to pay for that kind of power.” By the end do the book, we realize that Emily is not a hedonistic “lotus eater,” just a teenage girl who is too afraid to say no, too eager to please, and too guileless to know that something is always expected in return; she is young enough to mistake opportunity for kindness. That is innocence.

The Lotus Eaters

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