‘Lark and Termite’ by Jayne Anne Phillips

  In her first book in nine years, Jayne Anne Phillips offers a poetically written tale filled with the heartbreaking loss of war and the lasting shadows of family secrets.
  The unusually structured “Lark and Termite” follows its characters in parallel stories set over six days in 1950 and 1959.
  The 1959 story line follows 17-year-old Lark and her half brother Termite who live with their Aunt Nonie in West Virginia after being abandoned by their mother. Lark steps into the maternal role, lovingly looking after her younger brother, who is disabled and can’t speak.
  The 1950 thread follows Cpl. Robert Leavitt, Termite’s father, who, while serving in the Korean War, finds himself trapped with a group of South Korean refugees in a tunnel at No Gun Ri, the controversial site where civilians trying to escape North Korean soldiers were killed by American troops.
  Each story has echoes of the other woven through the text. A Korean girl and boy trapped with Leavitt are reflective of Lark and Termite. There are tunnels in both stories, and in addition to the physical, sounds and colors mirror each other, connecting the stories set almost a decade apart.
  From 1959: "Termite,” I tell him, “I’ll fix the radio. Don’t worry.” He’s got to have something to listen to. He moves his fingers the way he does, with his hands up and all his fingers pointing, then curving, each in a separate motion, fast or careful. He never looks at his fingers but I always think he hears or knows something through them, like he does it for some reason.
  From 1950: Leavitt sees the boy sitting near him, hunched in his odd posture as though keeping watch, listening. ... He sees the boy’s hands hovering over him, his fingers open and parted, faintly moving. Leavitt tries to speak to him, but he only makes a sound, an exhalation. The boy turns his head as though to hear more intently, moves to touch his wrist to Leavitt’s face. It’s as though he reads sound with touch.
  As these swirling stories continue to intersect, Lark begins to uncover long-buried family secrets. As she digs into her own past she awakens ghosts that will lead her to forge a path into the flood of her future.
  “Lark and Termite” is a touching puzzle, one that will linger with readers.