by Tim Tran with Tom Fields-Meyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 20, 2020
A candidly moving and historically thoughtful account.
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A debut memoir recounts life under Communist rule in Vietnam and a man’s daring escape to America.
Tran’s life was always shadowed by the political tempestuousness of his native Vietnam. Born in a small coastal village in 1950, he was later forced to flee with his family, transformed into a refugee at the age of 4. The author’s father, Nguyen Dinh Muu—he eventually had to change his name—joined the Viet Minh nationalist cause but abandoned it after it took an aggressive Communist turn, compelling him to relocate out of fear of retribution. Tran and his family would have to move yet again, this time to Saigon, once the war between the northern and southern portions of the country finally caught up with them. But the author’s father, seeing promise in Tran’s aptitude, rigorously prepared him for academic success and a way out. Later, the author won a scholarship to attend college in the United States. He studied at Pacific University in Oregon and the University of California at Berkeley and was confronted with a terrible choice, poignantly depicted here: Return to Vietnam as required, or defy the terms of his scholarship. He chose to fly back, confident that harmony and stability were achieved with the Paris Peace Accords in 1973 and committed to marrying his girlfriend, Thuy. But the minute he returned, his passport was confiscated, and for the next four years, he languished under Communist rule, always looking for a way out. Tran writes simply, even journalistically, describing in vividly powerful detail the horror of the despotism he survived. In the airport the day he returned to Vietnam, “the military presence was immediately palpable. All around me, I saw hundreds of sandbags, barbed wire, and soldiers armed with M-16 rifles….Within seconds of arriving, I knew I had gone from the Land of the Free to the Land Under Military Control.” Still, this is not a dour lamentation but rather an inspiring story of personal triumph. The author not only fled Vietnam in a wooden fishing boat and made it back to the United States, he also ultimately prospered both personally and financially. Furthermore, Tran’s book—written with Fields-Meyer—delivers an astute synopsis of a chaotic period in Vietnamese history and an intelligent commentary on the perspectives of Americans during that time.
A candidly moving and historically thoughtful account.Pub Date: June 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-945398-02-5
Page Count: 390
Publisher: Pacific University Press
Review Posted Online: March 6, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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New York Times Bestseller
by Pamela Anderson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 31, 2023
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.
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New York Times Bestseller
The iconic model tells the story of her eventful life.
According to the acknowledgments, this memoir started as "a fifty-page poem and then grew into hundreds of pages of…more poetry." Readers will be glad that Anderson eventually turned to writing prose, since the well-told anecdotes and memorable character sketches are what make it a page-turner. The poetry (more accurately described as italicized notes-to-self with line breaks) remains strewn liberally through the pages, often summarizing the takeaway or the emotional impact of the events described: "I was / and still am / an exceptionally / easy target. / And, / I'm proud of that." This way of expressing herself is part of who she is, formed partly by her passion for Anaïs Nin and other writers; she is a serious maven of literature and the arts. The narrative gets off to a good start with Anderson’s nostalgic memories of her childhood in coastal Vancouver, raised by very young, very wild, and not very competent parents. Here and throughout the book, the author displays a remarkable lack of anger. She has faced abuse and mistreatment of many kinds over the decades, but she touches on the most appalling passages lightly—though not so lightly you don't feel the torment of the media attention on the events leading up to her divorce from Tommy Lee. Her trip to the pages of Playboy, which involved an escape from a violent fiance and sneaking across the border, is one of many jaw-dropping stories. In one interesting passage, Julian Assange's mother counsels Anderson to desexualize her image in order to be taken more seriously as an activist. She decided that “it was too late to turn back now”—that sexy is an inalienable part of who she is. Throughout her account of this kooky, messed-up, enviable, and often thrilling life, her humility (her sons "are true miracles, considering the gene pool") never fails her.
A juicy story with some truly crazy moments, yet Anderson's good heart shines through.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780063226562
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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SEEN & HEARD
by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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