The Unwanted: A Memoir of Childhood

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Shoshana, April 13, 2007 (view all comments by Shoshana)
+ Viscerally disturbing and well-told

- A bit more interiority would be interesting, though perhaps neither culturally appropriate nor an accurate reflection of the author's experience

A wrenching narrative of an Amerasian boy's life in post-1975 Vietnam. Kien Nguyen's mother was a banker with two half-white children when Saigon fell to the Northern communists. The family suffered on several accounts: Generally, as South Vietnamese who were suspected of not supporting the North, and hence were presumed to be allied with the U.S.-backed puppet government; as obvious capitalists; as a mixed-ethnicity family; and because Kien's mother had not married her children's fathers.

The book is an almost unrelentingly depressing and horrifying account of poverty, oppression, and discrimination in post-war Vietnam. Though flat at times (like many war narratives by then-children), it was sufficiently disturbing that I had to take breaks while reading. Ultimately, after many beatings, a rape by his mother's ex-boyfriend, starvation, thwarted escapes, and prison, Kien has a chance to leave Vietnam, but first perpetuates the cycle of violence and oppression.

A good companion piece to Truong Nhu Tang's A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath and Andrew X. Pham's Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam.

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Product Details

ISBN:

9780316284615

Author:

Nguyen, Kien

Publisher:

Back Bay Books

Location:

Boston

Subject:

Refugees

Subject:

Vietnamese conflict, 1961-1975

Subject:

Childhood Memoir

Subject:

Vietnamese Americans

Subject:

Vietnamese Conflict, 19

Subject:

Nha Trang

Subject:

Biography-Childhood Memoir

Subject:

Biography - General

Copyright:

2002

Edition Description:

1st Back Bay pbk. ed.

Series Volume:

2001-10

Publication Date:

20020431

Binding:

TRADE PAPER

Language:

English

Pages:

368

Dimensions:

8.30x5.50x.97 in. .73 lbs.