REVIEW OF UYEN NICOLE DUONG'S NOVELS BY PROFESSOR TRUONG BUU LAM

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Daughters of the River Huong
Author: Uyen Nicole Duong
Publisher: Amazon Encore
ISBN: 9781935597315

This is a good book. Although it is not a suspense novel, it is, nevertheless, difficult to put it down once you start to get into it. The author writes well, cleverly structures her narration, intelligently calibrates her discourse, devotes most of her pages to tell the readers about herself, the fourth generation in a family saga which began toward the end of the 19th century, on the Huong or Perfume river of the royal city of Hue, Vietnam.

The plot parallels the history of that country and the events span three continents of Asia, Europe, America. The author knows exactly what she writes about, describes with authority and authenticity where her characters have gone to and what they have lived through. Does it matter whether this book IS or NOT an autobiography, when the narration flows unimpeded, the details abundant, the circumstances sound, the time fitting. There is no blemish of any kind or dimension. Only one venial mistake: why is the king of Annam’s title His Royal Highness and not His Royal Majesty?

The great grand mother who inaugurated the family epic ferried people across the Perfume River for a living. She was fifteen when she was literally abducted by no other than the king of Annam, who did not rule over his kingdom for the French colonialists had made it into a protectorate.

The royal concubine with her twin daughters and a son moved out of the Royal City after the French had exiled her husband-king. This second generation witnessed the Vietnamese anti-French and revolutionary struggle. Two members of that generation joined the resistance. The son disappeared without a trace and this is how the twins’ daughter described her aunt who came home:

I rushed to the courtyard and found her, the shadow of a woman...The shadow turned around and I had to jerk back. I found not the young, vivacious woman in black pajama…but a stooping, limping old woman with dead eyes and a scarred face. Parts of her brows were missing. …I approached her and grabbed her hands. The wrists, too, were full of scars. One little finger was missing...I felt her face. No longer that amber-sugar brown skin. The scar tissue rubbed against my fingers. She smiled. The mouth was crooked…part of her upper lip was missing…Limping on her foot, the old woman ripped off her blouse. ..I saw scar tissue on her breast. The nipples were missing…They have butchered my beautiful sister. They destroyed her mind. (page 140-142)

The fourth generation was no longer fully a daughter of the river Huong. She did grow up in the “French villa on the Nam Giao slope” of Hue, but soon moved to Saigon, Paris where at the age of 15, she lost her innocence with her French guardian, an old friend of her family. Back in Saigon, events caught up with her: five days before the end of the Vietnam war, she entered the Continental Hotel and gave herself to an American reporter in exchange for seats for members of her family, except her grand mother, on the plane carrying them to America.

I do not think I am doing justice to this book in this short summary. The story is much more captivating; the narration uses an overall better polished language and the characters are presented with a great deal more insight and acumen.
Click Here To Purchase Daughters of the River Huong

Postcards from Nam
Author: Uyen Nicole Duong
Publisher: AmazonEncore.
ISBN: 9781612180182

Usually, I always try to familiarize myself with a new book by reading all of its paraphernalia: preface, postface, acknowledgments, introduction, etc. This time, I am so glad I did not read the Post Script first. Otherwise it would have turned me off from getting further into this book. That would have been a disaster!
For this book IS good, by whatever name you may give it: long story, short novel or novella. The author writes well and deserved to be complimented on her own merit and NOT because she came to the US at the age of 16, or because she gives voice to any immigrant community, or because she straddles two, three, or any number of different cultures! She authored a work of fiction and her work should be evaluated, assessed, criticized, appraised as a work of art. Period. Please forgive me for digressing.
Postcards from Nam could have been a beautifully reminisced tale of a young, budding, deep friendship –or love if you insist-- between two teenager souls evolving in an environment which emphasized the difference in their social backgrounds…without, however, erecting insuperable barriers between them. The narration flows lightly, gracefully, unhindered; the description so evocative and realistic that one has the impression of being there. One, indeed, does not need many words to declare one’s feelings or to proclaim one’s devotion. Frugal, delicate, subtle, refined, graceful is what is mandated.
Two excerpts:
p. 19:
"When I got to my house, I was too proud to thank Nam. So I just quietly withdrew my hand. Before I closed the door, I saw, again, his almond eyes, staring down at the spot in my gut where fear had once been, yet had subsided because he had held my hand."
p. 31:
"-Why listen, Nam? You are not sophisticated enough to be familiar with this music.
-Oh yes, I am. -Then, tell me. What the name of this piece?...
His face reddened. He could not answer. He did not know the name of the tune. I stopped playing to look into his almond eyes, wide open and tearful. His lips trembled; his nostrils palpitated beneath the red tip of his slender nose. He looked weak and vulnerable. In his adolescent way, he was also beautiful, like a baby nightingale with drooping wings, caught in the tropical rain of the Far East."

I do not care too much for the second part of this work. The plot sounds contrived, strained; the narration unequal, even superficial. I concede that the search for Nam did give the author the opportunity to introduce two extraneous elements to the story. First, a Rashomon-like account revealing the sordid and tawdry dimensions of the Vietnamese community in California. Second, the inhuman circumstances the Vietnamese boat people encountered in their escape to foreign destinations combined with the superhuman courage of certain of them. But these two aspects have already been presented to the public in all of its angles, under every light, by so many people, including eyewitnesses. The introduction of these two elements costs this work its unity and its ethereal quality. Instead of a fairy tale, we have a common tale; still a fascinating one.
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Truong Buu Lam

About the Reviewer:  Dr. Lam earned his Doctorate in History from the Université Catholique de Louvain, in Belgium many years ago. He has since taught history of Southeast Asia at several Colleges and Universities in Vietnam and the USA. He has authored a few works on Vietnamese history. He is now retired and the last affiliation was the University of Hawaii.

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