02977cam a2200409 i 4500 1007014557 TxGeo 20231006120000.0 230512s2023||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2023022993 9780802160508 hbk. 0802160506 hbk. (OCoLC)1380463511 TxGeo rda Nguyen, Viet Thanh, 1971-, author. A man of two faces : a memoir, a history, a memorial / Viet Thanh Nguyen. Man of 2 faces. First edition. New York, NY : Grove Press, [2023] 380 pages ; 24 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Includes bibliographical references. "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.-- Provided by publisher. 20231019. Nguyen, Viet Thanh 1971- Nguyen, Viet Thanh 1971- Family. Vietnamese Americans California San Jose Biography. Immigrants California San Jose Biography. Refugees Vietnam Buôn Mê Thuột Biography. Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Refugees. Buôn Mê Thuột (Vietnam) Biography. San Jose (Calif) Biography. Biographies. QS5