Back to Blog
The best we could do author6/11/2023 ![]() ![]() These two stories providing an interesting counterpoint to each other – the mother grew up in the social elite, attending French schools, and vowing never to give up her freedom and dreams by marrying or having children. ![]() We see her father’s childhood unfold, and then her mother’s. We see the long, difficult conversations she had with her father, and the way her mother opened up more easily to the author’s Caucasian husband about her past than she could with her own daughter. In fact, the very process of her seeking to uncover her parents’ stories is woven into the narrative itself. ![]() The author herself arrived in the US as a toddler (after her family fled Vietnam), so the book centers more on her parents’ stories. The Best We Could Do is a graphic memoir, in the tradition of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis or Nina Bunjevac’s Fatherland. Yet the two books complemented each other in interesting ways. In one sense they’re very different from one another – the first is a memoir in graphic novel format, and the second is a collection of short stories. The books are The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui and The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen. It wasn’t particularly intentional on my part, but I love it when I find unexpected connections in books that I read. Two of the best books I’ve read this year were by Vietnamese-American authors. ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |