Comment

Oct 22, 2016
Heard Nguyen on Fresh Air/NPR and Writers and Company. Finally, a sophisticated insider perspective on the Vietnam war for a change. Nguyen's narrative is all that and more: a satiric thriller that's hyper-critical, surreal and sardonic, with literary not just genre ambitions. His account of the fall of Saigon at the beginning of the book is compelling. Observations of diasporic life in California ring true for Asian immigrants at large. And the over-the-top phantasmagoric take on Apocalypse Now is hilarious in its unfettered contempt leavened nevertheless with rueful complicity. If over-written and too well-informed by its author's considerable grasp of identity politics, The Sympathizer remains impressive for its daring and ambitious scope. It goes well beyond apologist first generation narratives to challenge basic notions of arrival, migration and identification. A bravura slap in the face of anyone expecting mournful elegy, The Sympathizer strikes a self-conscious blow for Vietnam's complicated recent history and culture.