Dust Child - Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai

GENRE: Historical Fiction

RATING: 3.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: Reveals some great insights about Vietnam and the aftermath of the American war on the country. The plot was somewhat predictable, but overall, a worthy OwnVoices work.

Story Synopsis:

2016. Middle-aged Phong is the son of a Black American soldier and a Vietnamese mother, but as he grew up in an orphanage, he doesn’t know anything about his parents except their race. He has now decided to search for his father and using his help, escape to the US with his family to avoid the drudgery of Vietnam.

2016. Dan, an American veteran, has returned to the country where he served during the war, in the hope that his PTSD will improve, but unknown to his wife Linda, he has a secret agenda as well.

1969: Sisters Trang and Quỳnh follow their friend’s advice and leave their rice fields to work as ‘bar girls’ in Sài Gòn, hoping to earn enough to repay their parents’ debts. As Sài Gòn is filled with American GIs, the bar girls are supposed to drink ‘Sài Gòn tea’ and flirt with the GIs in exchange for money. Unknown to the two, the interactions don’t stop at just flirting and the sisters are forced to make a tough decision. Things get even more complicated when one of them falls for an American helicopter pilot.

The lives of these four characters are interlinked. How? You will need to read the book and find out.

The story comes to us mostly in the 3rd person limited perspective of the above four characters.

Bookish Yays:

✔ The authenticity of the Vietnamese voice and culture. Not surprising considering the author’s background.

✔ The title: ‘Dust Child’ refers to the mixed race children born during and after the war. While many of these babies were treated as outcasts, the ones with Black fathers and born with prominent Black features were treated the worst. Learning about this unseen side of the war was saddening and yet illuminating.

✔ The narrative choices: A white man, two Vietnamese women, and an Amerasian man, with each voice being given an equal weightage and no sides being taken and no fingers being pointed against either country. Loved the fairness of it. I also appreciate the point raised about the hypocritical attitude of the country that welcomes returning ex-American GIs but shuns ex-Viet Cong soldiers as enemies.

✔ Trang’s character arc – handled the best in terms of emotions as well as development.

✔ This is a war story where the war stays in the background. What we get to see is the human cost of the war for those not actively involved in the fighting. Appreciate this approach as it adds a novelty to the plot.

✔ The themes, ranging from PTSD to single motherhood to rape to prostitution to poverty to racial discrimination to gender discrimination. All handled well. None over the top. (These do create plenty of triggers, so proceed with care. It’s a story set during wartime, so don’t expect an easy, trauma-free read.)

Bookish If Onlys:

⚠ Phong’s character arc: Had so much potential in terms of depicting how Amerasian children left in Vietnam felt about fitting in neither here nor there. But somehow, his arc shoves in too many of some things and too little of others, leaving me feeling like I didn’t get to know him well. I still liked his arc, but wish it had been more streamlined. ⚠ I wish the approach towards this story had been more literary than commercial. The general fiction vibes reduce the impact of the emotions.

⚠ The ending: While most of the ending was good, some part was just too exaggerated and coincidental. A layer of realism would have made me happier as this wasn’t supposed to be a happy story anyway.

Bookish Nays:

❌ Dan’s character arc: Feels quite ad hoc. The changes in his behaviour aren’t written smoothly, and as such, he is quite tough to like and not at all a compelling character. Even if I make allowances for his PTSD, he doesn’t come across as consistent.

❌ Disliked the ‘white saviour’ vibes coming from the contemporary storyline, regardless of how genuine a part of it might be.

❌ The predictability: Most historical fiction readers will be able to see where most of the story is going. Except for a couple of plot points at the end, it is quite guessable and offers no major surprises.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 12 hrs 27 minutes, is narrated by Quyen Ngo. She does perform well, and her voicing of the Vietnamese words left me in awe of how musical the language actually is. As I have no idea how most diacritics are pronounced (except for the ones appearing in Devanagari scripts), I tended to gloss over the unknown sounds while reading. But her pronunciation (and the author’s writing) made me realise the importance of diacritics, especially in the Vietnamese language.

That said, I feel that a part of my disconnect with the book is because I heard the audio version. Listening to the American accent voicing Vietnamese characters was quite distracting. While the narrator does try to voice the characters’ dialogues in a partially (Vietnamese) accented manner, it isn’t consistent.

The author’s note at the end is read by the author herself, and while the content is brilliant, her authentic Vietnamese accent makes the contrast with the narrator’s voice even more prominent.

While I would still recommend the audiobook, especially if you want to hear the musicality of the Vietnamese language, a part of me wants you to read it rather than listen to it. Now you decide!

(PS: This is the kind of audiobook where I wish there was a separate chapter saying, “Dear Reader/Reviewer, this is how the character names are spelt”, going on to give the right spellings for all the major Vietnamese characters. Seeing ‘Quỳnh’ in the blurb gave me a jolt because I had written ‘Qin’ in my review notes. 😵)

I’ve heard a lot about this author’s debut work, ‘The Mountains Sing’, but as I haven’t read it yet, I cannot compare the two. A friend of mine who has read both warned me that this isn’t as good as the earlier book. I guess that means I have the better book to look forward to.

Regardless, this book did manage to satisfy me to a great extent. My expectations were quite high, especially as this is an #OwnVoices work. Despite the qualms I had with some of the plot points, I relished reading an insider perspective of the US-Vietnam war.

Definitely recommended to historical fiction readers.

My thanks to Bolinda Audio and NetGalley for the ALC of “Dust Child”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook.