A moving, poetically rendered tale of personal pain buried deep in willful self-reinvention.
A lawyer in the United States who escaped Communist Vietnam as a child receives mysterious postcards from a childhood friend that reopen old emotional wounds.
Mimi works in Washington, D.C., as a lawyer. Lost in the hazy blur of her hectic career, she rarely pauses to consider her traumatic childhood. Born and raised in Vietnam, she fled the country with her family in 1975 when Saigon fell to the Communists. Her grandmother refused to join them, however, afraid that her frailty would prevent their escape. Years later, now a successful professional living a thoroughly American life, Mimi begins to receive postcards from someone named Nam—she can’t recall anyone of that name, but he seems to know her well, referring to her as Mi Chau, the Vietnamese name no one she knows now uses. Her mother remembers him, though, as a sweet boy who lived across the alley in Saigon, a talented artist who brought Mimi treats, told her ghost stories, and tearfully professed his love for her. Mimi becomes obsessed with finding Nam and learning his fate, a dogged pursuit that brings her into a long overdue confrontation with her own, formerly silenced demons, a struggle affectingly portrayed by author Duong. “Nam became my project—the symbol for my pursuit of nobility and the return to my roots.” In nimble prose, the author explores the intractability of the protagonist’s past, as resistant to revision as it is to evasion. Mimi is a memorably drafted character, both emotionally fragile and relentless. This is a brief novella—under 100 pages—but densely layered with poignancy and nuance.
A moving, poetically rendered tale of personal pain buried deep in willful self-reinvention.Pub Date: Aug. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-61218-018-2
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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