Vietnamese writers confront the country’s legacy of conflict in an often revealing and touching, but uneven, anthology.
Life in the shadow of half a century of war.
From 1945 to 1990, Vietnam was a nation ravaged by a succession of wars with France, the United States, and China. This anthology of 20 short stories, appearing in English for the first time, grapples with aspects of that prolonged conflict and the profound emotional toll it inflicted on the Vietnamese people. Unlike much of the large body of fiction from American writers that deals with what the Vietnamese call the “American War,” these stories, most of which are set in rural areas of the country and feature humble characters, focus less on the experience of combat and more on its lingering effects in the national life. That’s true in stories like “Brother, When Will You Come Home?” an account of one man’s search for the remains of his brother, one of the 300,000 declared missing in the war with the United States, or “Birds in Formation,” a reckoning with the pain caused by brothers who fought on opposite sides in that conflict. Several of the stories, including “Ms. Thoai,” “Red Apples,” and “They Became Men,” are noteworthy for their attention to an often overlooked subject—the experiences of women during and after wartime. To provide context to a Western audience, in addition to an informative foreword from Vietnamese novelist Bao Ninh, the editors/translators helpfully include a capsule biography of each author and a useful summary of the story that places it in a historical, and sometimes literary, context. The literary quality of the stories varies widely, as might be expected in a collection that includes both writers of some international stature and others for whom writing is not their principal occupation. Readers seeking a broader perspective on Vietnam will find much of interest here.
Vietnamese writers confront the country’s legacy of conflict in an often revealing and touching, but uneven, anthology.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-231-19609-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Columbia Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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