Dazzling and impassioned, this novel evokes history from a perspective often overlooked—that of its survivors.
Two friends grow up in Saigon during the height of the Vietnam War, but follow very different paths in the war’s aftermath.
In 1966, Mai is 13 years old, leading a pampered existence in a traditional Confucian household in Saigon. In spite of daily media reminding her that her country is at war, Mai is largely sheltered by both her privilege and a willed propensity to “[remember] what she wanted to remember.” Such is the power of Mai’s determination that, in spite of the powerful impact of witnessing a monk self-immolate in protest against religious persecution and the bombing of Saigon in 1968, her adolescence is largely untroubled until she accidentally witnesses her father seducing his young student Mai Ly. Mai responds by entering into her own sexual liaisons with gleeful abandon, specifically with the American soldiers who hang out on Catinat Boulevard. Unlike Mai, Mai Ly had a childhood defined by privation. Her mother was killed in a hit-and-run accident when she was 4 and her father's family was massacred in My Lai, potentially by the same G.I.s who now frequent his street-corner beer stand. In 1975, the fall of Saigon finds Mai abandoning her baby in an orphanage as she flees on one of the last helicopters out of the city. Meanwhile, Mai Ly, who has served as a spy and armed combatant for the Viet Cong, returns to her home in triumph, ready to celebrate their liberation with a people who, shockingly to her, do not feel liberated at all. As the aftermath of the war unspools, the novel follows the fortunes of Mai; Mai Ly; Michael, one of Mai’s G.I. lovers, who's African American; their son, Nat; and many others as they navigate futures which must be lived in the light of their complicated pasts. This book is a capacious read but its conversational style, evocative characters, and penchant for very short, episodic chapters keep the reader from feeling bogged down by either the heft of its pages or the ambition of its scope.
Dazzling and impassioned, this novel evokes history from a perspective often overlooked—that of its survivors.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781771838276
Page Count: 467
Publisher: Guernica Editions
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.
A woman faces a health crisis and obsesses over a local accident in this wonderful follow-up to Sandwich (2024).
Newman begins her latest with a quote from Nora Ephron: “Death is a sniper. It strikes people you love, people you like, people you know—it’s everywhere. You could be next. But then you turn out not to be. But then again, you could be.” It sets an appropriate tone for a story that is just as full of death and dread as it is laughter. Two years after the events of Sandwich, Rocky is back home in Western Massachusetts and happily surrounded by family—her daughter, Willa, lives with her and her husband, Nick, while applying to Ph.D. programs; her widowed father, Mort, has moved into the in-law apartment behind their house. When a young man who graduated from high school with Rocky’s son, Jamie, is hit by a train, Rocky finds herself spiraling as she thinks about how close the tragedy came to her own family. She’s also freaking out about a mysterious rash her dermatologist can’t explain. Both instances are tailor-made for internet research and stalking. As Rocky obsessively googles her symptoms and finds only bad news (“Here’s what’s true about the Internet: very infrequently do people log on with their good news. Gosh, they don’t write, I had this weird rash on my forearm? And it turned out to be completely nothing!”), she also compulsively checks the Facebook page of the accident victim’s mother. Newman excels at showing how sorrow and joy coexist in everyday life. She masterfully balances a modern exploration of grief with truly laugh-out-loud lines (one passage about the absurdity of collecting a stool sample and delivering it to the doctor stands out). As Rocky deals with the byzantine frustrations of the medical system, she also has to learn, once more, how to see her children, husband, father, and herself as fully flawed and lovable humans.
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063453913
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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