海角大神

Beth Nguyen was 8 months old when her father, uncles, and grandmother whisked her and her sister out of Saigon, Vietnam, the day before the city fell to the North Vietnamese army in 1975. After stops in three refugee camps, they eventually settled in Grand Rapids, Michigan.聽

In her new memoir, 鈥淥wner of a Lonely Heart,鈥� Nguyen marvels that 鈥渟o much of my life hearkens back to a time that I can鈥檛 remember and didn鈥檛 choose.鈥� The powerful, searching narrative probes two momentous consequences of her quick exit from Vietnam, during which her mother was left behind: She grew up as a refugee in America, and she didn鈥檛 see her mother again until she was 19 years old.

鈥淥ver the course of my life I have known less than twenty-four hours with my mother,鈥� the author explains at the outset. Those hours elapsed during six visits in 26 years. They took place in Boston, where Nguyen鈥檚 mother was resettled after she herself became a refugee, a decade after her daughters did.聽

Nguyen remembers her father abruptly telling her when she was in fifth grade, that her mother, about whom they rarely spoke, had come to America. She reflects upon why she and her sister asked so few questions about this unexpected mention of their absent parent. Part of it had to do with Nguyen鈥檚 distant relationship with her father, a taciturn and quick-tempered man with whom the author had difficulty connecting.聽

But Nguyen believes that there was another reason as a child she didn鈥檛 pursue more information about her mother. 鈥淚t was troublesome enough being Vietnamese in our conservative white town,鈥� she notes. 鈥淭here was already so much to conceal from our white friends, so many ways to pretend that we were just like them.鈥澛�

Being a refugee was an isolating experience for the author. 鈥淩efugees don鈥檛 fit the romantic immigrant narrative that鈥檚 so dominant in America,鈥� she observes. 鈥淭hey are a more obvious, uncomfortable reminder of war and loss.鈥� She felt, as she elegantly puts it, 鈥渂oth too seen and unseen.鈥� In an especially penetrating chapter, a version of which appeared in The New Yorker, she describes how her given name, Bich 鈥� common in Vietnam but an albatross for her in her adopted country 鈥� exacerbated feelings of shame that she came to associate with the refugee status she could not shake, even after becoming an American citizen.聽

鈥淎s Bich, I am a foreigner who makes people a little uncomfortable,鈥� she writes. 鈥淎s Beth, I am never complimented on my English.鈥� (The author鈥檚 earlier books 鈥� a memoir, 鈥淪tealing Buddha鈥檚 Dinner,鈥� and two novels 鈥� were published under the name Bich Minh Nguyen; she started going by Beth in her 30s.)

As a child, Nguyen didn鈥檛 lack mother figures. When she was 3, her father married a woman whom she is close to and calls 鈥淢om鈥�; it was her stepmother who helped foster her love of books with regular trips to the local public library. Her indomitable grandmother lived with the family, providing the stability and love that Nguyen didn鈥檛 get from her father. She was, Nguyen writes, 鈥渢he life force of our family.鈥澛�

But it is Nguyen鈥檚 cautious and halting connection to the woman she calls her 鈥淏oston mother鈥� that gives this aching memoir its shape. Their visits are always brief; the author often spends considerably more time getting to and from her mother鈥檚 apartment than she spends inside it. Nguyen asks her mother about Vietnam, her past, and, especially, how she felt on the day in 1975 when she discovered that her children were gone. Most often, Nguyen鈥檚 questions are dismissed with clipped responses or a wave of the hand. They aren鈥檛 close. As the author writes, 鈥淥ur histories had separated long ago and had never truly met again.鈥澛�

Nguyen insists throughout the book that it is easier to remain detached from her mother. 鈥淥nce you are gone, it gets easier to stay gone,鈥� she writes. And elsewhere: 鈥淚 now know the strange secret of this: absence gets easier, not harder.鈥� And elsewhere: 鈥淚t is easier, in the end, to keep your distance. You let what is unraveled stay unraveled.鈥� Both the author and her sister are married, and neither invited her mother to her wedding. 鈥淲e hadn鈥檛 told our mother about our weddings because it was simpler not to.鈥澛�

Of course, such claims must be weighed against the very existence of a memoir devoted to this unusual mother-daughter relationship, as distant and formed by loss as it is. Early in the narrative, Nguyen, who has two sons, mentions that when she brought her first child to Boston at age 1 to meet her mother, her mother didn鈥檛 show up, choosing to go gambling at a casino instead. They wouldn鈥檛 meet again for seven years.聽

The author shrugs it off, writing, 鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 blame her for wanting to try her luck elsewhere,鈥� but one assumes the rejection must have been painful in the moment. Meanwhile, her mother鈥檚 reasons for skipping their date are unknowable.

Nguyen compares her mother鈥檚 absence with her own presence as a parent, citing her relief when her children reached an age at which they鈥檇 remember her no matter what happened. Motherhood, of course, is heavily freighted, at both a cultural and a personal level. Perhaps there is no easy way out.