Sandy Donaldson has been working in Vietnam for a volunteer organisation, HOPE, for four years. Reluctant to return to Australia when her contract is up, she invites her oldest friend Anna to come and explore the popular tourist destination of beautiful Vietnam.
Both have unexplored links to this country. Sandy’s father fought in the Battle of Long Tan. Anna’s mother was a Vietnamese boat refugee who landed in Australia and married as Aussie, but died when Anna was seven.
They meet Tom Ahearn, a former Australian journalist who covered the Vietnam War, and he sees the connections between the girls, their families and Vietnam. He tries to persuade Sandy’s father to return to Long Tan and settle the ghosts that have haunted him for forty years. Tom is also the first to suggest that Anna search for her late mother’s family.
But Sandy and Anna are hesitant, swept up in their own ambitions, relationships and a business deal. It will be the near-blind Buddhist nun living alone in the pagoda atop one of the strange karsts jutting from Halong Bay who might hold the key to all their futures…
Monsoon is a journey into the hearts and memories of those caught in a certain time in a particular place from Australia’s favourite storyteller Di Morrissey.