AGAINST THE FLOOD

An intense, accusatory 1999 tale—the latest entry in Curbstone’s estimable Voices from Viet Nam series—tells of Khiem, a distinguished writer and editor whose unsparingly honest new novel brings down a hailstorm of opprobrium and abuse that makes him an outcast and severely afflicts both Khiem’s mistress Hoan (a beautifully realized character) and his termagant (and flagrantly unfaithful) wife. Based in part on a 19th-century Vietnamese epic poem, this harsh tale of conflicting loyalties and officially sanctioned injustice does occasionally descend to preachiness, but the vividness of its characters (especially Hoan) and their sufferings preserves its inherent credibility and drama.