Yong 4/26: White Ghost Girls by Alice Greenway

Two American girls come of age in Hong Kong, anchorless without their father who is mostly away in Vietnam photographing the war. The short book is almost entirely told in the descriptive rather than narrative, making it not so quick a read. While this is effective in putting you in the scene, showing the beauty of the country, sharing the characters' love of the land, it also distances, slows, makes the writer's art apparent rather than transparent. The story packs a punch. But it makes you work for it. Nevertheless, I find myself thinking back to these girls, their story, long after I finished the book, more so than I have for my prior three books.