“The Lotus and the Storm” by Lan Cao (post 6): Mai’s alternate personality, Bao, narrates the last chapter of this apparently autobiographical novel

I would guess that the multiple personality in this novel is autobiographical, since, 1. if it were not, it would be silly to make it so prominent, or include it at all, 2. the novel’s depiction of multiple personality is realistic enough to have been based on personal experience, 3. the Acknowledgments names a clinical psychologist who specializes in treating multiple personality, based in Virginia (USA) and 4. on the novel’s last page, Bao says, “Mai wants what I want—for us to be reconciled and integrated…When we return to Virginia, she will get the help we need to heal” (1, p. 386).

Although the depiction of multiple personality is generally realistic, I question the assumption that Mai has only three personalities: Mai (host personality), Bao (scowling, alternate personality), and Cecile (child personality).

As noted previously, Bao has declared herself the omniscient one, who knows everything that Mai and Cecile think and do; whereas, Mai has memory gaps for times that Bao has taken control. So an explanation is required for Bao’s memory gap: “There is suddenly a memory I cannot quite place” (1, p. 346). There must be one or more additional personalities to account for where that memory came from.

Also, Bao hears unidentified voices: “I am taken over instead by an echo of pleading voices” (1, p. 266), which may be voices of additional personalities.

So Mai probably has more than three personalities, as most people with multiple personality do. It is typical to initially think they have only two or three personalities, but then you notice things for which those few personalities can’t account.

In conclusion, The Lotus and the Storm is an engaging novel of the Vietnam war, Vietnamese culture, the Vietnamese-American community, and multiple personality. In regard to the latter, it is notable that one of the novel’s three narrators is explicitly acknowledged to be an alternate personality.

1. Lan Cao. The Lotus and the Storm. New York, Viking, 2014.