An Upside Down Sky

by Linda Dahl

When Lidia, a blocked Latinx artist in her sixties, goes on a group tour of Namyan, a fictional Southeast Asian country reopened to the world after a long dictatorship, she gets much more than the vacation she thinks she’s signed on for. Against a backdrop of pagodas and enigmatic customs, she and the disparate crew of eighteen Americans on the tour encounter one adventure after another—experiences that challenge their assumptions about their host country’s placid surface of beautiful pagodas and wandering Buddhist monks. Along the way, Lidia finds companionship and sexual pleasure with Haynes, a Black man seeking adventure—even danger—in Namyan. On a nighttime excursion among mysterious ancient buildings, they watch the nighttime sky. Lidia remarks that the stars look upside down – a metaphor for Namyan as a foreign place and for her. She enjoys being with Haynes but is conflicted. The final chapter reveals a secret, the source of her conflict, and her steps towards a new freedom.

An Upside-Down Sky’s cast of characters, including their Namyanese guide, mirrors America: straight, gay, gender-fluid, black, brown, white, progressive, conservative, artistic, repressed, old, young. Some of them accept Nanyam’s charming façade at face value, while others seek to understand the country’s brutal repression by the military and ongoing ethnic conflicts. And most, resistant as they might be to change, are transformed by their time there.

232 pages, Paperback

Published April 19, 2022

Reviews

[David Alexander]

OVER, UNDER, SIDEWAYS DHARMA

Linda Dahl's An Upside Down Sky is set in a land filled with pagodas, statues -- often gigantic ones -- of Buddha, erratic local residents, waterways clogged with floating aquatic plants and frequently huge, sometimes venomous, bugs. Although the author has set the story in the fictitious Southeast Asian country of "Namyan," lines from Kipling's poem, Mandalay, immediately sprung to mind as I tucked into "Sky's" first pages, viz., "Where the flyin'-fishes play, An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!"

The novel hinges on the metaphor of its title, from its preoccupation with Buddha's feet rather than the Brahma-mind of Shakyamuni, to the juxtaposition of the American "innocents abroad" that comprise the bucket-list vacation party cast of characters with the natives who service them, attend them, harry them as "feet police" at Buddhist shrines and dog them to purvey yoongi, the drug made of betel nut and meth that begins to blow American visitors' minds from chapter one onward.

Yet unlike other "innocents abroad" found in literature from Rudyard Kipling to Mark Twain to Graham Greene, the members of "Sky's" tourist group, and their guide, Thila, remain protected by a kind of bulletproof shield or force field, despite the many mishaps that befall them in the course of their relatively brief encounter with the faraway and exotic country they’ve entered and leave them unscathed by comparison with what might have bechanced the natives under similar circumstances. That "shield" is a far cry from the inviolate supremacy enjoyed by the British pukka sahibs in Orwell's Burmese Days -- which inspired Dahl's novel -- yet the gulf between natives and American tourists is plainly vast, and remarked with some discomfort by both sides.

Injured, arrested, drugged, driven insane and driven to violence, infected with lethal pathogens, seduced by she-males, attacked by street scum, bitten by snakes and scorpions, fornicating or appearing to fornicate beneath the gaze of all-wise, all-seeing, Buddha himself, they emerge unscathed to catch the final plane back to Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois and the Bronx -- the Namyanese remain where they are and have long abided.

Gracing the author's achievements here are her accomplishments in creating poignant, often ethereally beautiful and striking passages that leave the reader enthralled; passages that linger in the mind like the aftertaste of a rich and delectable coffee on the palate and that kept me coming back to read them over and again; no need to cite one or two from among the many found throughout the novel; I'll leave readers to discover these for themselves.

As to dialogue and back story, key ingredients of a well-seasoned novel, they're applied with wit, grace and style throughout, and masterfully at that. The back stories are especially well-done, positioned seamlessly throughout the novel without intruding on plot development and giving the characters a momentum that drives everything forward and makes their sometimes awkward and self-defeating actions comprehensible, as one might understand those of a neighbor, close friend or relative, so that by the book's conclusion the tour group's members have become something like people we know or once knew, and the consequences that befall them cause for sadness, gladness or "wow, she made it," gratification, such as in the case of protagonist Lidia, for whom the journey has brought renewed personal satisfaction and artistic success.

Nuanced and complex as a top-shelf wine, character-driven and flawlessly plotted, An Upside Down Sky paints a portrait of actors on an invisible stage, and a stage invisible to themselves, devas dancing on the lotus petals held serenely in the lap of tranquil and sagacious Buddha, treading the paths of what Buddhism knows as dharma, a portrait riveting and unforgettable that author Linda Dahl has, with penetrating vision, brilliantly brought to life in her exceptional novel.

[James Michael]

An Upside Down Sky is an engaging and thought-provoking novel about identity, freedom, cultural assumptions, companionship, and transformation, set against the intriguing backdrop of a fictional Southeast Asian country emerging from decades of dictatorship.

At the center of the story is Lidia, a Latinx artist in her sixties who arrives in Namyan expecting a group vacation but instead encounters experiences that challenge her assumptions and force her to reconsider parts of herself she has kept constrained. Her developing relationship with Haynes adds an intimate dimension to the story as both characters explore companionship, desire, vulnerability, and the possibility of change.

The fictional setting is one of the novel's most distinctive elements. Beneath Namyan's beautiful pagodas, Buddhist traditions, and welcoming surface lies a complicated history of military repression and ethnic conflict. The diverse group of American travelers provides another layer, reflecting different identities, political perspectives, ages, and approaches to unfamiliar cultures.

What makes the novel especially compelling is its emphasis on transformation. The journey does not simply expose the travelers to another country; it challenges their assumptions and creates opportunities for personal change. Lidia's eventual confrontation with a long-held secret gives the story an especially meaningful emotional dimension as she moves toward greater freedom.

A nuanced and atmospheric novel for readers interested in literary fiction, cultural exploration, identity, relationships, and stories about discovering unexpected possibilities later in life.

[Christina Faris (books_by_the_bottle)]

Lidia, an artist in her sixties, decides to go on a group tour of Namyan, (a fictional created-for-the story) city in Southeast Asia. She ends up getting more than she bargained for among a diverse crew of tourists.

I love books that are immersive! I do not know much about Asia and the writing here was so descriptive that I felt like I could see these places. Even though Namyan was a fictional city, it was so vivid it seemed so real. The author has a great note about this afterwards. I laughed out loud at some of the adventures the characters got into, but overall I had a little trouble keeping track of everyone. There were so many characters that they were all listed in the beginning, which was helpful to reference back to. But I did really enjoy Lidia’s adventures and appreciated what she discovered about herself on her journey. Plus, this cover is just gorgeous!

Thank you to @booksparks @shewritespress for the review copy and the chance to participate in the #springpopup!

This review will be shared to my Instagram blog books_by_the_bottle shortly ☺️

[Lee Rush]

A charming read about seemingly real people.

At first glance, one would mistake this novel for a travelogue. But when a lengthy cast of characters is introduced like a Playbill at the beginning of the book, you soon realize you are in for an adventure.

What appealed to me most about this book was the sense of realism in its characters and their happenstance. This could easily be a real live recounting of an Elder Hostel group to the East as much as it is a novel. And while the mystery reader in me craved a problem to solve or a riddle to unravel, I very much enjoyed the fantastical misfortunes of this group as much as I enjoyed its sense of the ordinary.

A lovely bunch of three dimensional characters in an astounding backdrop of a fictional Eastern country made for a great and quick read.

[Kcaroth1]

I was very excited to win a review copy of this book based on a fictional Myanmar. There were some lovely descriptions of temples, countryside, culture and traditions in an Upside Down Sky. This pushed my rating up from 2 stars to 3 stars.
The characters themselves were fairly well written but I found them largely unlikable. When there is very little driving the plot, it helps to have someone in the story that you enjoy spending time with, and that just didn't happen here. The author clearly wanted to have a group of very different people, with various attitudes and traits, interact together on their tour of a place that is foreign to them. Perhaps it was just too much like what this type of trip could potentially be like for this to appeal to me.

[Susan]

Perhaps I overlooked a few clues early on about a mystery within this tale of accident-prone tourists thrown together on a journey through a recently reopened country in Southeast Asia. While I enjoyed the set-up of a motley crew of Americans acting out their own quirks and oddities on a tour of thinly veiled Myanmar (acknowledged in the author’s postscript) I wished for a faster pace along the way. Well written and evocative descriptions of place. There is a plot here but it can be hard to find behind all of the chatty descriptions of the tour group’s likes, dislikes and near disasters. Worth looking for her previous works to see how she puts her talents to use on other projects.

[Maggie Hentz]

I love a story that teaches me new information about cultures and places around the world. While Namyan is a fictional place, it felt characteristic of Southeast Asia and it was fun to explore this place! This book follows a group of Americans that are not only learning about themselves, they are learning about the misconceptions they had about this foreign place. This was a deep and dense read that I found to be very intriguing. I enjoyed the characters in this book and really enjoyed the acute attention to detail and the transformation that occurs throughout the book.

[Samantha]

The story of a quirky group of tourists visiting a fictional country modeled after Myanmar. I liked how the culture of the place was interwoven with witty banter, and the characters were well developed. It did drag a little at times, and I felt like the ending was a bit abrupt.

[Madison]

Thank you to She Writes Press for the gifted copy!