Bookworm, Issue 21

The Book: Where Rivers Part: A Story of My Mother’s Life by Kao Kalia Yang

Where Rivers Part is an unforgettable book about enduring bonds between daughters and mothers, in twofold. It’s a memoir about a Hmong woman, Tswb Muas, who must leave her mother and everything she knows behind to forge a new life for herself and her family, written by her daughter Kao Kalia Yang, in loving acknowledgement of her mother’s remarkable spirit. The story is steeped in motherly love – granted to Tswb by her own mother and later given by Tswb to her seven children, unconditionally.

Tswb (pronounced “chew”) escapes wartime Laos and eventually resettles in a faraway place, Saint Paul, Minnesota. Her daughter retells it all, but from her mother’s perspective. With extraordinary candidness Tswb reveals a lifetime of hardship, sacrifice, and sadness, but also commitment, fierce love, and pride.

Throughout, memories of a happy childhood, in a house with a citrus orchard at the junction of two rivers, will sustain and comfort Tswb. She says, of the oranges her father grew, “my heart will carry their scent within me forever.” And so, the citrus aromas Tswb associates with home inspire this pairing with an aromatic wine whose grapes also grow near a river.

In 1961, in the mountains of Laos, Tswb is born into a large and loving family. Her father dies when she is 9 years old, and when she’s 14 her family flees their village, hunted by communist soldiers. While living in the jungle, she marries Npis (pronounced “bee”) and goes to live with his family, as is Hmong tradition. They escape to a Thai refugee camp, where they’ll spend the next eight years, before emigrating to America with their two daughters, in hopes of a fresh start.

Tswb narrates this journey in the first-person, searing her recollections into readers’ memories. She allows her daughter to document her at her most vulnerable, and Yang’s sparse, yet expressive, prose honors that trust. Reflecting on her marriage, Tswb says, “After all these years, I know the truth: I fell into my marriage because I could not bear the thought of breaking Npis’s heart even as pieces of my own shattered inside.” Tswb says no more and no less than is necessary to reveal her truth. And Yang’s gift to readers is an emotionally immersive novel upon which to meditate.

Tswb does not shy away from uncomfortable topics, recalling lost pregnancies, starvation, poverty and racial discrimination. But amidst adversity, she remains resilient. Family, the one constant in Tswb’s life, is a source of strength. These bonds form the backbone of this story, keeping Tswb from falling apart in difficult times and helping her exchange grief for hope and love.

When she becomes pregnant for the first time, Tswb recognizes, “I wanted to be…the kind of mother my mother had been to me.” In America, she becomes a “stronger version” of herself. When paying for groceries with her WIC vouchers, Tswb feels judged and ashamed, but “the thoughts of strangers are not as important to me as the danger of hunger.” She will do anything to protect her children and longs to give them a better life than her own.

Where Rivers Part is a deeply personal story that rises above categorization as a book about motherhood or a book about immigration. Readers don’t have to be women or mothers, immigrants or Hmong, to connect with Tswb’s humanness. Her intimate and honest narrative transcends those boundaries. This is a story for everyone who longs to experience the depths of a mother’s love.

The Wine: Kvaszinger, Sárga Muskotály, Tokaj, Hungary, 2022 $23.99

This wine is pale lemon with medium (+) intensity on the nose. It’s aromatic – filled with youthful, fruity aromas of fresh peach and nectarine, lemongrass, lime zest, pink grapefruit, sweet orange blossom, honeysuckle, celery, and a hint of ginger root.

On the palate, the wine is off-dry with high acidity, medium body, and medium alcohol at 11.5% ABV. It has medium (+) intensity with flavors that are delightfully both ripe and refreshing, including orange peel, pink grapefruit, lemongrass, lime, peach, honey and citrus blossoms. The long finish beautifully showcases the wine’s sweet fruitiness and bright acidity.

The wine is made with Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains. The grape, more common in France and Italy, is called Sárga Muskotály in Hungary. These grapes were hand harvested, fermented in stainless steel, and then the wine was aged in steel, on the lees for 4-5 months, prior to bottling.

Hungary’s prestigious Tokaj wine region is known worldwide for sweet dessert wines generally made from a blend of Furmint, Hárslevelü, and Sárga Muskotály; however dry wines are becoming more popular. The region suffered greatly in the 20th century, after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian empire and under Communist rule, but the Kvaszinger family managed to hold on to their vineyards and a new generation continues to make wine.

Why the pairing works:

Family and motherhood are the greatest priorities in Tswb’s life. She reminisces about her girlhood – happy and carefree years with her parents and siblings in a mountain village where two rivers meet. Tswb’s deep love for her family does not dwindle, despite separation and the passage of time.

When war arrives and the family must abandon their home and citrus orchard, Tswb says, “How I will miss the tangelos, the tangerines, the pink grapefruits, and the green pomelos, the thin-fleshed oranges filled with sugary juices, sweeter than any other in these parts.” Repeatedly, in difficult times, Tswb remembers these smells and flavors, and they “anchor” her to her family’s love.

Our paired wine evokes some of the citrus aromas and flavors that Tswb associates with her home in Laos. It is made with Sárga Muskotály (Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains), an aromatic grape with characteristics of mandarin orange, orange blossom and Meyer lemon.

Additionally, like Tswb’s childhood village, this wine comes from a special place where two rivers converge. The Kvaszinger family makes wine in Hungary’s Tokaj region, near the village of Olaszliszka, where the Bodrog and Tisza rivers intersect. (These rivers generate humid conditions, encouraging the noble rot necessary for Tokaj’s prestigious sweet dessert wines.)

Tswb and Npis have seven children, and she works tirelessly to give them the care and love that she gave up long ago when she left her mother’s side to be married. When word of her mother’s death in Laos reaches her in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Tswb is inconsolable.

All she can do is pass along her love – the love she felt from her own mother – to her children. At the Asian grocery stores she buys boxes of oranges, peeling them for her children. “I tasted to make sure that they were filled with sweetness, then I fed it to my children by the spoonful, from the oldest to the youngest. I did this until there were no boxes left, and the store managers told me, ‘Next year there will be more.’ ”