A fragmentary reflection on the refugee experience, at once lyrical and biting, by one of our leading writers.
A Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist sifts through his influences and experiences in a kaleidoscopic memoir.
“This is a war story,” writes Nguyen, an acclaimed author of fiction (The Sympathizer, The Refugees) and nonfiction (Nothing Ever Dies), in an autobiography that is deeply personal and intensely political. In nonlinear fashion, the author recounts his family’s flight from wartime Vietnam in 1975, when he was 4; a childhood in San José, California, where his parents (called, in their native tongue, Ba Má) operated a Vietnamese grocery store; and his development as a writer, scholar (he is a professor of English, American studies, and ethnicity at the University of Southern California), and conflicted citizen of what he sardonically calls AMERICA™—a process that inevitably widens the gap with his immigrant parents. Along the way, Nguyen offers sharp assessments of Vietnam War films such as Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, The Deer Hunter, and The Green Berets, the latter a “work of propaganda so spectacular and atrocious that only the Third Reich or Hollywood could have produced it.” If the author’s criticism is understandably scathing, there is also a mischievous sense of humor, as when he includes a page of one-star Amazon reviews of The Sympathizer (“Absurdist and repulsive”; “If you like torture read this book”; “Bafflingly overpraised”). The sections about Ba Má, shaded by the unreliability of memory, strike a melancholy note, although his parents remain somewhat hazy as characters. Idiosyncratic typographical treatments—passages set like lines of poetry; words blown up in large type—add visual variety without quite justifying themselves. Readers seeking the anchor of narrative will be frustrated, but Nguyen indisputably captures the workings of a quicksilver and penetrating mind. The author includes a selection of black-and-white photos.
A fragmentary reflection on the refugee experience, at once lyrical and biting, by one of our leading writers.Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9780802160508
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.
An insider’s chronicle of a pivotal presidential campaign.
Several months into the mounting political upheaval of Donald Trump’s second term and following a wave of bestselling political exposés, most notably Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin on Joe Biden’s health and late decision to step down, former Vice President Harris offers her own account of the consequential months surrounding Biden’s withdrawal and her swift campaign for the presidency. Structured as brief chapters with countdown headers from 107 days to Election Day, the book recounts the campaign’s daily rigors: vetting a running mate, navigating back-to-back rallies, preparing for the convention and the debate with Trump, and deflecting obstacles in the form of both Trump’s camp and Biden’s faltering team. Harris aims to set the record straight on issues that have remained hotly debated. While acknowledging Biden’s advancing decline, she also highlights his foreign-policy steadiness: “His years of experience in foreign policy clearly showed….He was always focused, always commander in chief in that room.” More blame is placed on his inner circle, especially Jill Biden, whom Harris faults for pushing him beyond his limits—“the people who knew him best, should have realized that any campaign was a bridge too far.” Throughout, she highlights her own qualifications and dismisses suggestions that an open contest might have better served the party: “If they thought I was down with a mini primary or some other half-baked procedure, I was quick to disabuse them.” Facing Trump’s increasingly unhinged behavior, Harris never openly doubts her ability to confront him. Yet she doesn’t fully persuade the reader that she had the capacity to counter his dominance, suggesting instead that her defeat stemmed from a lack of time—a theme underscored by the urgency of the book’s title. If not entirely sanguine about the future, she maintains a clear-eyed view of the damage already done: “Perhaps so much damage that we will have to re-create our government…something leaner, swifter, and much more efficient.”
A determined if self-regarding portrait of a candidate striving to define herself and her campaign on her own terms.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781668211656
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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