Owner of a Lonely Heart

May 15, 2023
A quietly moving memoir that grapples with what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a refugee, an American. Nguyen, author of Stealing Buddha's Dinner, was 8 months old when her father spirited most of her family out of Saigon the day before the city fell to the North Vietnamese Army in April 1975. Her mother, however, was left behind, and much of the book probes her mother's absence and reappearance. The title of the first chapter, "Twenty-Four Hours," refers to the total time Nguyen spent with her mother "over the course of my life." Each meeting was fleeting, and despite her attempts to connect, they remained strangers. "Our histories had separated long ago and had never truly met again," she writes. Once, instead of meeting Nguyen and her 1-year-old grandson for the first time, she visited the local casino. Surprisingly, the author wasn't angry. After all, when they left Saigon, "family meant my dad, uncles, grandmother, sister, and me." Over the course of the text, Nguyen's autobiography becomes a meditation on motherhood and memory. The author considers her other maternal figures: her grandmother Noi; her stepmother, her "real" mom; and White mothers such as her high school boyfriend's mom. Nguyen also wonders how her two young sons will remember her--"My relationship with my children is also my relationship with time...with the mothers I have known, with the mother I have never known," she writes, "It is a catch in the throat. It is the edge of tears"--and she explores her identity as a refugee navigating an America that saw her as an outsider. One chapter focuses on her name, which she changed from Bich (a kind of jade) to Beth. "As Bich, I am a foreigner who makes people a little uncomfortable," she writes. "As Beth, I am never complimented on my English." A ruminative, unadorned, lyrical look at origins, family, and belonging.

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May 29, 2023
“My relationship with the word ‘refugee’ has paralleled my relationship with the word ‘mother,’ ” novelist Nguyen (Pioneer Girl) writes in her ruminative memoir. “For much of my life, I felt uncomfortable with both.” At the end of the Vietnam War, Nguyen’s father fled Saigon with his two young daughters for the U.S.; Nguyen’s mother, unable to access the part of Saigon where Nguyen and her father and sister were living, stayed behind. Since then, Nguyen has spent less than 24 hours in her mother’s presence. In plainspoken prose, she grapples with what she and her mother owe each other in terms of time and emotional investment (“I never know how to refer to the woman who gave birth to me”), and recounts the time when her mother chose to go to a casino instead of meeting her one-year-old grandson for the first time. “Sounds bad,” Nguyen says, but “I couldn’t blame her for wanting to try her luck elsewhere.” The portrait that emerges of this mother-daughter relationship is fascinating yet somewhat blurry, as Nguyen works through what little information she has about her mother on the page. She’s at her sharpest in several essaylike chapters that turn elsewhere, offering observations about race and class born of her immigrant experience. This shines as a multilayered look at the ways absence can shape one’s sense of self. Agent: Nicole Aragi, Aragi Inc.

June 1, 2023
"We were a family continually being shaped by a past--who we were, how we had gotten here--that would never leave us." Nguyen was still a baby when her father, grandmother, and uncles fled Vietnam during the fall of Saigon, eventually finding a home in mostly white Michigan. Her mother was left behind. As a college student, Nguyen would finally meet her mother, who had relocated to Boston. But the details about her parents' relationship and her birth remain mysterious. In this poignant memoir, the author recalls her years trying to blend into white society, facing overt racism, and coming to terms with her life as a refugee. In her family, affection, feelings, and family lore were seldom shared. Although her grandmother gave them stability and shared traditions, Nguyen often felt adrift. Visits with her mother were brief, moments of peace were rare. The author shares her difficulties in fitting into the white world as she searches for her roots. Beautifully written and painfully honest, Nguyen's memoir reveals the struggles and prejudices refugees face and the importance of knowing your life story.

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Starred review from June 1, 2023

American Book Award winner Nguyen (author of the memoir Stealing Buddha's Dinner) returns with a memoir focused on settling in Michigan after her family fled Vietnam during the war, when Nguyen was an infant. She also describes growing up without her mother, who either stayed or was left behind in Vietnam; the author is unsure which. After 10 years, her mother relocated to the U.S. as a refugee, but it took nearly another decade for mother and daughter to reunite in spite of the author's efforts to make it happen sooner. Nguyen candidly discusses the fear and hardship that refugees face, using the experiences of her father and uncles to bolster her narrative. Her own experiences as a "once-refugee" growing up in Michigan are also explored, sometimes in heartbreaking detail. Simple things--having a legal and an actual birthday, for example--and difficulty reconnecting with her mother after becoming a mother herself show the pain of family fragmentation. VERDICT Nguyen's honesty and vulnerability will captivate readers instantly. Highly recommended for all libraries.--Mattie Cook

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