A man of two faces: a memoir, a history, a memorial

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Nguyen, Viet Thanh, 1971-

Nguyen, Viet Thanh

Athens Drive Community
Cary Regional
Duraleigh Road Community
Green Road Community
Leesville Community
Morrisville Community
Northeast Regional
Richard B. Harrison Community
Southeast Regional
Southgate Community
Wake Forest Community

Biography

Athens Drive Community - Biography
Cary Regional - Biography
Duraleigh Road - Biography
Green Road Community - Biography
Leesville Community - Biography
Morrisville Community - Biography
Northeast Regional - Biography
Richard B Harrison - Biography
Southeast Regional - Biography
Southgate Community - Biography
Wake Forest Community - Biography

"With insight, humor, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces Viet Thanh Nguyen rewinds the film of his own life. He expands the genre of personal memoir by acknowledging larger stories of refugeehood, colonization, and ideas about Vietnam and America, writing with his trademark sardonic wit and incisive analysis, as well as a deep emotional openness about his life as a father and a son. At the age of four, Nguyen and his family are forced to flee his hometown of Ban Mê Thuot and come to the USA as refugees. After being removed from his brother and parents and homed with a family on his own, Nguyen is later allowed to resettle into his own family in suburban San José. But there is violence hidden behind the sunny facade of what he calls AMERICA TM. One Christmas Eve, when Nguyen is nine, while watching cartoons at home, he learns that his parents have been shot while working at their grocery store, the SàiGòn Moi, a place where he sometimes helps price tins of fruit with a sticker gun. Years later, as a teenager, the blood-stirring drama of the films of the Vietnam War such as Apocalypse Now throw Nguyen into an existential crisis: how can he be both American and Vietnamese, both the killer and the person being killed? When he learns about an adopted sister who has stayed back in Vietnam, and ultimately visits her, he grows to understand just how much his parents have left behind. And as his parents age, he worries increasingly about their comfort and care, and realizes that some of their older wounds are reopening.-- "With insight, humor, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces Viet Thanh Nguyen rewinds the film of his own life. He expands the genre of personal memoir by acknowledging larger stories of refugeehood, colonization, and ideas about Vietnam and America, writing with his trademark sardonic wit and incisive analysis, as well as a deep emotional openness about his life as a father and a son. At the age of four, Nguyen and his family are forced to flee his hometown of Ban Me Thuot and come to the USA as refugees. After being removed from his brother and parents and homed with a family on his own, Nguyen is later allowed to resettle into his own family in suburban San Jose. But there is violence hidden behind the sunny facade of what he calls AMERICA TM. One Christmas Eve, when Nguyen is nine, while watching cartoons at home, he learns that his parents have been shot while working at their grocery store, the SaiGon Moi, a place where he sometimes helps price tins of fruit with a sticker gun. Years later, as a teenager, the blood-stirring drama of the films of the Vietnam War such as Apocalypse Now throw Nguyen into an existential crisis: how can he be both American and Vietnamese, both the killer and the person being killed? When he learns about an adopted sister who has stayed back in Vietnam, and ultimately visits her, he grows to understand just how much his parents have left behind. And as his parents age, he worries increasingly about their comfort and care, and realizes that some of their older wounds are reopening.--

Book

Books

998a660f-5ae3-b4c2-db21-05bb05216d4a

9780802160508

BK

2025-09-21T14:47:52.094Z

-1

Non Fiction

Non Fiction

B NGUYEN

Wake County Public Libraries

Athens Drive Community
Cary Regional
Duraleigh Road Community
Green Road Community
Leesville Community
Morrisville Community
Northeast Regional
Richard B. Harrison Community
Southeast Regional
Southgate Community
Wake Forest Community

9780802160508

2023

Grove Press

grouped_work

Biographies
Buon Me ThuoĐt (Vietnam) -- Biography
Immigrants -- California -- San Jose -- Biography
Nguyen, Viet Thanh, -- 1971-
Nguyen, Viet Thanh, -- 1971- -- Family
Refugees -- Vietnam -- Buon Me ThuoĐt -- Biography
San Jose (Calif.) -- Biography
Vietnam War, 1961-1975 -- Refugees
Vietnamese Americans -- California -- San Jose -- Biography

A man of two faces : a memoir, a history, a memorial

A man of two faces : a memoir, a history, a memorial / Viet Thanh Nguyen

A man of two faces

a memoir, a history, a memorial

Family
Immigrants
Nguyen, Viet Thanh
Refugees
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Vietnamese Americans