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Published Mar 2023
352 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
From the internationally bestselling author of The Mountains Sing, a suspenseful and moving saga about family secrets, hidden trauma, and the overriding power of forgiveness, set during the war and in present-day Việt Nam.
In 1969, sisters Trang and Quỳnh, desperate to help their parents pay off debts, leave their rural village and become "bar girls" in Sài Gòn, drinking, flirting (and more) with American GIs in return for money. As the war moves closer to the city, the once-innocent Trang gets swept up in an irresistible romance with a young and charming American helicopter pilot. Decades later, an American veteran, Dan, returns to Việt Nam with his wife, Linda, hoping to find a way to heal from his PTSD and, unbeknownst to her, reckon with secrets from his past.
At the same time, Phong—the son of a Black American soldier and a Vietnamese woman—embarks on a search to find both his parents and a way out of Việt Nam. Abandoned in front of an orphanage, Phong grew up being called "the dust of life," "Black American imperialist," and "child of the enemy," and he dreams of a better life for himself and his family in the U.S.
Past and present converge as these characters come together to confront decisions made during a time of war—decisions that force them to look deep within and find common ground across race, generation, culture, and language. Suspenseful, poetic, and perfect for readers of Min Jin Lee's Pachinko or Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing, Dust Child tells an unforgettable and immersive story of how those who inherited tragedy can redefine their destinies through love, hard-earned wisdom, compassion, courage, and joy.
"Achingly honest and ultimately hopeful; essential reading for U.S. audiences." ―Library Journal (starred review)
"Searing...A well-turned tale of broken families across continents and decades." ―Kirkus Reviews
"Nguyễn is at her best when the characters directly address their need for absolution and acceptance, which Nguyễn stages in dramatic scenes and with a cinematic clarity. Despite the bumps, there's much to admire." ―Publishers Weekly
"Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai will win many more readers with her powerful and deeply empathetic second novel. From the horrors of war and its enduring afterlife for men and women, lovers and children, soldiers and civilians, she weaves a heartbreaking tale of lost ideals, human devotion, and hard-won redemption. Dust Child establishes Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai as one of our finest observers of the devastating consequences of war, and proves, once more, her ability to captivate readers and lure them into Viet Nam's rich and poignant history." ―Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Sympathizer and The Committed
"Dust Child takes on the difficult subject of Amerasians left behind once the American military fled its own misadventures in Southeast Asia. Look for a reception akin to Min Jin Lee's bestselling Pachinko." ―The Los Angeles Times
"Nguyễn deftly wields her own polyglot talents to reclaim lives too long overlooked." Shelf Awareness
"An insightful, engrossing novel." ―The California Review of Books
"Best-selling Vietnamese author Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai dazzles with this immersive and deeply affecting portrait of three families struggling to come to terms with the bitter legacy of the Vietnam War. Set in Saigon during the war and 40 years after, the intergenerational story shifts between three interconnected narratives: an American veteran haunted by what he was ordered to do in the conflict, the experiences of several Vietnamse "bar girls" whose families' lives depended on their ability to "entertain" American soldiers, and the story of a child born to one of those women. Both intimate and universal, Dust Child is a plea for peace—and a powerful reminder that every person is more than their worst decision." Apple Books who chose Dust Child as one of the best books of March.
"Dazzling. Sharply drawn and hauntingly beautiful."―Elif Shafak, author of The Island of Missing Trees
"Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai shows us the capacity we hold to confront our pasts, for the purpose of life is not to remain intact, but to break open, to let loss be a guide, to face the echoes of longing. In Dust Child, rupture leads to emotional richness and pain creates the pathways worth walking. I truly cannot wait for the rest of the world to celebrate this book."―Chanel Miller, New York Times bestselling author of Know My Name
"Once again, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai has written a beautiful novel that shines a light on the history of Vietnam. With a poet's grace, she writes of the legacy of war across time and place and the stories that bind us. Dust Child is simply stunning."―Eric Nguyen, author of Things We Lost To The Water
"Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai is one of the most unique storytellers of our time. She creates plots which are Dickensian in their breadth and mastery, while bravely probing the complex emotional challenges of living in a modern world full of disruption and displacement. In Dust Child, Quế Mai displays the same tenderness and compassion for her characters, hard-earned understanding of human trauma, and poetically evocative language that made her debut novel The Mountains Sing an international bestseller beloved around the world."―Natalie Jenner, internationally bestselling author of The Jane Austen Society
"With a poet's gift for language and a psychologist's eye for the tender, error-prone hearts of mankind, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai weaves a web of impossible choices, inescapable circumstance, and searing loss, set to the backdrop of a war that changed everything ... A heartbreaking, beautifully told, utterly unique story of love, loss, and longing that speaks to the very heart of the human experience."―Kristin Harmel, New York Times bestselling author of The Forest of Vanishing Stars
From Kirk Kellerhals, Co-Founder and President of The SouthEastAsian Coast2Coast Foundation. Intersections, Kirk's documentary about Amerasian children, won Best Inspiration Film at the 2022 Cannes World Film Festival
Until I was introduced to the novel Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, I made a conscious effort to avoid any works of literature that dug deep into the Vietnam War or its' by-products, such as me. As an adopted Amerasian orphan from the Vietnam War growing up in America, it was early on in my childhood that I became cognizant of all the negative connotations that were attached to it. As a result, I spent most of my childhood and even a good part of my adult life denying the existence of my Amerasian heritage. I concealed my ethnicity and identity as a bụi đời, a "dust child".
As I began to read Dust Child, I felt something I have never experienced while reading a novel. I felt a deep profound connection to most every character in the book. Through their stories, I had a painful detailed view of what my life in Vietnam would have been like had I not been adopted and raised in America. I had intimate insights of what the relationship between my own US military birth father and Vietnamese birth mother must have been like as the stories they've shared with me nearly perfectly paralleled many of the stories I read in this book. I got an inside look at the emotional pain experienced by US service members that had a front row seat to the atrocities of a lost war where even love seeped in to fill the empty gaps left in their hearts. The very pain that I am on a mission to help alleviate so that they can live with some measure of honor in their twilight years for their service and sacrifice.
The interconnected story lines throughout Dust Child took me to place of reconciliation and healing. It helped me understand how I ended up in an orphanage in the middle of a war over 50 years ago and the reasoning behind the painful decisions that led to it. It helped melt away the sting of bitterness I've held in my heart my entire life for what can only be described as not feeling whole. This book was validation for me, the importance of sharing the real-life multi-generational stories of those whose lives are impacted by the war in Vietnam. Once I started reading, it was hard to put down and I found myself getting annoyed by the interruptions of real life and its' responsibilities. The further I read into the stories, the deeper my understanding and connections to my own past became. When I finished my marathon reading of this book at 4:30 AM, my heart was full, and I experienced a renewed excitement to do everything I can in what little time I have left to show gratitude for the life that I've been given and to pay those blessings forward through sharing real life stories that are much like the characters in this book and my own, so that others can come to that same place of peace and healing that I have found.
This information about Dust Child was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Dr Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai is an award-winning writer in both Vietnamese and English. Her eight books of poetry, short fiction and non-fiction in Vietnamese have received some of Vietnam's top literary awards including the 2010 Poetry of the Year Award from the Hanoi Writers Association, the Capital's Literature & Arts Award, and First Prize in the Poetry Competition celebrating 1,000 Years of Hanoi.
Her debut novel and first book in English, The Mountains Sing, is an International Bestseller, a New York Times Editors' Choice Selection, Winner of the 2020 BookBrowse Best Debut Award, a Finalist of the Audie 2021 Best Audiobook of the Year Award, and Winner of the 2020 Lannan Literary Award Fellowship for "a work of exceptional quality" and for "contribution to peace and ...
... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Nguyen Phan Que Mai's Website
Name Pronunciation
Nguyen Phan Que Mai:
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