Media Coverage from our 40th Anniversary Season HH Houston Chronicle | HoustonChronicle.com | Sunday, November 8, 2020 | G5 ZEST

FICTION

By Andrew Dansby Joseph and Lucy is full of STAFF WRITER possibility. He forms an al- most instant bond with her ick Hornby Nick Hornby’s tale sons through their enthusi- opens his new asm forsoccer and the FIFA novel with a video game, a reminder that list. Those Joseph’s age falls between Nfamiliar with of love in the time that of Lucy and her chil- his work should find some dren. sense of continuity connect- ing the opening paragraph of The Brexit effect “Just Like You” to Hornby’s of Brexit By setting the book in debut novel from 25 years 2016, Hornby’s latest also gets ago, “High Fidelity.” For anarrative nudge by the EU some, a world of chaotic referendum, which has an variables requires a patch- agitative effect on the charac- work sense of order and ters and the story. As Hornby organization. writes, Brexit “was giving So “Just Like You” presents groups of people who didn’t an informal accounting — like each other, or at least rather than a numbered list — failed to comprehend each of various hatreds found in other, an opportunity to the mind of Lucy, a school fight.” teacher and a divorced moth- “Nobody knew it was er of two standing in line at a going to be a cultural bomb,” London meat market with Hornby said of Brexit. another parent whose com- “That’s the interesting thing pany she finds disagreeable. about it.I think most people Asked if he has his own list would have taken Joseph’s of hatreds and how they’ve line about, ‘Who gives a changed over the years, the (expletive) about that?’ But British author paused a mo- all these things got hooked ment. onto it.A whole kind of belief “Well, yeah, more of a system got attached to this mental checklist,” he said. very simple vote that should “Age does change it a little have been about something bit. The thing that has sur- else.” prised me over the last year Still, it’s a Hornby novel, is going back to feeling a little so the narrative possesses a like I did in my 20s with Mrs. naturalistic tone. Were it (Margaret) Thatcher. My first represented by an EKG, there general election vote was would be no vicious spikes. against Thatcher.I had that “I’m the wrong guy if all through the ’80s, when I you’re looking for big, dra- was in my 20s, this loathing matic things to occur,” he for her and her party, which says, laughing. “And that also over time has sort of calmed wasn’t my experience in right down. But the govern- London during those two ment’s handling of both years.” Brexit and the pandemic, But anxiety has festered well, that filled me with a some as the novel found its rage I hadn’t felt in quite a way into the world, as his long time.” London — “a thriving, multi- Hornby — who will do a racial city”— deals with virtual event through In- Brexit, a pandemic and lead- print’s Margarett Root Brown ers whose only interest is Reading Series today — power. touched on several social and “Just Like You” was com- cultural themes in his story, pleted before March. But a though the way we experi- meditation on the couple’s ence time as we age is the life inside a bubble feels connective tissue in “Just for fitting at a time when society You.” Working at the meat is increasingly indoors. market is Joseph, a Black man Parisa Taghizadeh Hornby takes no credit for in his 20s looking to make Briton Nick Hornby’s latest novel is “Just Like You.” prescience, but his account- some money on the side. So ing of Lucy’s hatreds that he babysits Lucy’s sons, and opens the book is eerie: “She in short order, he and Lucy finds her positive physical threads connecting them to hated any Conservative edu- find themselves drawn to one response to the song — a adolescence. Over the years, cation secretary, she hated another. Hornby writes about stilted head bobbing — horri- his attention has been drawn listening to her younger son’s the two navigating their back- fying in a way he wouldn’t more to those further into trumpet practice, she hated grounds from “a different were she closer to his age. adulthood. That said, if the any kind of liver, the sight of class, a different culture, a As one who has written arc in his work feels smooth, blood, reality TV shows, different generation.” regularly about music over the paths his characters fol- grime music and the usual The line reminds me of the the years, Hornby found such low are full of minor kinks, abstractions — global pover- comment about home re- divides fascinating and frus- twists and backtracks. Such is ty, war, pandemics, the im- pairs: between fast, cheap trating. “With music writing, the leaning, lurching and minent death of the planet, and good workmanship, you Ithink young writers want learning most people take on and so on.” can get two but never three. the knowledge of the older their paths. Hornby spoke about the “As I was writing the music writers but not the Hornby’s previous novel is book after taking a walk book,” Hornby said, “genera- cynicism. They don’t want to “State of the Union,” a 10-part around his neighborhood as tion appeared to be the big- read the rock critic saying, story about a lengthy mar- England enters a period of gest problem to me. And they ‘Oh, I’ve heard this (exple- riage slowly coming undone. shutdown. “It’s a nice day for have to solve it by agreeing tive) so many times: Nirvana ‘Just Like You’ “I think I was in some kind awalk,” he said. “But it feels not to confront it. By living in via Zeppelin.’ Kids want to be by Nick Hornby of groove after ‘State of the grim.” abubble. The other two, I excited about new music that Union,’”he said. “I was There exist bubbles of our Riverhead can be reasonably optimistic doesn’t sound like anything thinking about our central own construction, but “Just about in terms of the future. they’ve heard. So there is that 368 pages, $27 domestic relationships as Like You” also presents the Of course, generation never tension between too much something deeply important ways our customized bubbles presents an actual divide. Just knowledge and not enough Nick Hornby to us and meaningful to us in still exist under larger cultur- aset of complications.” enthusiasm.” reading virtual the way we think about the al bubbles. And some of With a long view of Horn- event world. So I knew I wanted to Lucy’s hatreds that may have Lurching into adulthood by’s work, a graceful arc can write about a couple again once felt so abstract feel less When: 4 p.m. Sunday At one point, Joseph, an be seen over a quarter centu- but in as different a way as abstract today. aspiring DJ, plays one of his ry. His earlier novels touch on Details: $5; possible.” pieces of music for Lucy, and men reluctant to cut the last inprinthouston.org The dynamic between [email protected]

EVENTS

SUNDAY SATURDAY Nick Hornby: Author will Margaret Atwood: give a short reading from Author will give a his new novel “Just Like short reading from her You,” followed by a new poetry collection conversation with “Dearly,” followed by novelist/journalist aconversation with Vendela Vida, via MacArthur Fellow Inprint’s website. 4 p.m., Natalie Diaz, via inprinthouston.org Inprint’s website. 7 p.m., TUESDAY inprinthouston.org Tribute to Abigail Emma Theriault: Author Arias: Author Julie will be in conversation Coy and illustrator with Victoria Aveyard to Grant Maniér will sign discuss “The Queen’s Dark Times” via Murder By murderbooks.com copies of “Abigail the Council Rebel Rose” via The Book’s YouTube Brave Little Llama,” a Blue Willow’s Facebook page. 1 p.m., THURSDAY children’s book based Live stream. 7 p.m., murderbooks.com on the 6-year-old who bluewillowbookshop.com Bishop Curry: Author will Special Virtual captured hearts for Jacqueline Winspear: be in conversation with Storytime: Author Kelly wanting to become a Author will discuss “This Bishop Doyle to discuss Bennett will read law enforcement Time Next Year We’ll Be “Love Is the Way” via “Norman: One Amazing officer before Laughing” with Doree Zoom. 6 p.m., Goldfish!” via Blue succumbing to cancer Shafrir via Murder By The brazosbookstore.com Willow’s Facebook Live ayear ago. Noon-3 Book’s YouTube page. Emily Schultz and stream. 10 a.m., p.m., Freeport Police 6:30 p.m., Halley Sutton: Authors bluewillowbookshop.com Department, 430 N. murderbooks.com will discuss “Little Ryan Sitton: Author will Brazosport Blvd., Threats” and “The Lady discuss “Crucial Freeport; WEDNESDAY Upstairs” via Murder By Decisions” via Zoom. 7 jigsawgrant.com The Book’s YouTube p.m., Ian Rankin: Author will brazosbookstore.com Arden Wray /New York Times page. 7 p.m., [email protected] discuss “A Song for the Margaret Atwood will give a reading Nov. 14. Arts & Culture  Books & Talks

READ THIS Inprint’s 40th Margarett Root Brown Reading Series Lineup Just Went from Big to Epic

Kazuo Ishiguro and Jhumpa Lahiri will now join an already-stacked lineup of literary heavyweights.

By Emma Schkloven • 1/5/2021 at 11:45am

IMAGE: COURTESY OF PUBLISHERS Updated 12:40 p.m. Jan 5

THE 2021 (VIRTUAL) EDITION OF INPRINT’S BELOVED ANNUAL READING SERIES WAS ALREADY SLATED TO BE BIG. NOW IT’S JUST MINDBLOWING. Last fall the organization announced the stacked lineup for its 40th Margarett Root Brown Reading Series. And now it’s added two more literary heavyweights to the schedule: Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro on March 7 and Pulitzer Prize-winner Jhumpa Lahiri on May 10.

“We are extremely excited to add these brilliant, internationally acclaimed authors to what is already an extraordinary season,” Inprint Executive Director Rich Levy said in a statement. “It’s fitting that our 40th anniversary season be filled with an astonishing array of literary experiences, and of the highest technical quality, in the context of the pandemic.”

In Inprint’s “virtual studio,” Ishiguro and Lahiri will read from their new books, Klara and the Sun and Whereabouts, respectively. Season ticket holders will receive admission to the studio and free copies of the books as part of their subscription. General admission tickets will also include a hardcover copy of the book.

Kazuo Ishiguro: 5 p.m. Mar 7. $30, general admission; tickets go on sale Jan 11. Online. Learn more here.

Jhumpa Lahiri: 7 p.m. May 10. $25, general admission; tickets go on sale Mar 8. Online. Learn more here.

SPONSORED Growing Beyond the Bayous: Spring Branch Trail Phase 1 Coming Soon!

Presented by Spring Branch Management District

Published 11:45 a.m. Sept 7, 2020

WHEN INPRINT CELEBRATES A SPECIAL OCCASION, it goes seriously big. Nothing demonstrates that more than the lineup of internationally celebrated authors the organization is bringing for its Margarett Root Brown Reading Series’ 40th anniversary. It’s a group of talent sure to spark conversations in every corner of the Bayou City and beyond, thanks to a new tweak to the longstanding literary series. “We wanted the lineup to be reflective of the time we’re in, reflect the issues that we’re all facing,” associate director Krupa Parikh tells Houstonia. “I think there’s a lot in this season that people will find very relevant and moving.”

Although a smaller lineup than in previous years, this seven-event, nine-writer season, which kicks off September 21 and runs through April 2021, features an array of literary heavyweights, including Pulitzer Prize winners Viet Thanh Nguyen, Marilynne Robinson, and Jericho Brown (a former Inprint Fellow, who just so happened to earn his PhD from the University of Houston). Also making appearances are National Medal of Arts recipient Julia Alvarez, Emmy-winning screenwriter and author Nick Hornby, and PEN/Hemingway Award recipient Chang-rae Lee, among others.

In an exciting twist, all of the season’s readings will be presented live via Inprint’s “virtual studio,” so you can satisfy that literary itch whether you’re in Houston or not. If safety allows, the two April readings will also be held in person—some serious icing on this book-themed anniversary cake.

See this year’s full lineup below. For more information about tickets and each reading, visit inprinthouston.org.

Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series | 2020-2021

Sept 21: Yaa Gyasi

Oct 5: Marilynne Robinson

Oct 12: Julia Alvarez & Sigrid Nunez

Nov 8: Nick Hornby

Feb 22: Lily King & Chang-rae Lee

Apr 12: Viet Thanh Nguyen

April 26: Jericho Brown

HH Houston Chronicle | HoustonChronicle.com | Sunday, March 7, 2021 | G5 ZEST

FICTION Ishiguro: Can a robot make sense of humanity?

By Andrew Dansby Ishiguro can scrutinize their connec- STAFF WRITER tions to a broader matrix of people. They can function, in a sense, as the ecades ago, Shizuo Ishiguro control for tests. Though they can also engineered a machine to pre- convey great regret, as Stevens does D upon the catastrophic realization that dict storm surges in the ocean. His son, novelist and Nobel laureate the work he revered was for a man with Kazuo Ishiguro, says his father conduct- ahorrific secret. Stevens’ existence ed his business not near the ocean, but becomes meaningless. rather “he worked in a laboratory in “Most of us hope to do the best we the woods, a long way away from the can do to the best of our abilities,” sea. The only time we saw the sea was Ishiguro says. “And we hope and trust when we went on holiday.” that it’ll be used well. I find that aspect Ishiguro, 66, was just 5 when his of human beings fascinating. And I family moved to England from Japan don’t think a lot of animals do it. Maybe for his father’s oceanographic work. wolves have some sense of duty to the “I didn’t have a great deal of interest pack. But it seems to me a lot of ani- in science, despite growing up in a mals are content to eat things, breed house with a scientist,” the younger and die. Human beings are not satisfied Ishiguro says nearly 60 years later. with that. We want to think we’ve made “This arts-and-science division encour- agreat contribution to something. Or aged us to think of ourselves in differ- just to know that we did our best. Even ent worlds, and I didn’t even feel guilty criminals want to play their part in the about it — that I didn’t understand basic gang. ‘I never cracked under police things about his work. And now, not interrogation.’ Human beings have this just with the pandemic but everything sense of needing for their sense of that has happened in the world over dignity this idea of serving something the past 20 years or so in terms of bigger than ourselves. And that has science and technology makes me always interested me.” regret that I’m not better educated in With Klara, he goes further into the terms of scientific thought and a scien- deep of service than before, probing tific way of pursuing truth. I’ve come to our interactions through the perspec- have a profound respect for that ap- tive of an entity specifically designed to proach as opposed to the other way, observe and adapt. Klara also allows which is to say whatever you feel is the Ishiguro to convey aspects of this future truth is the truth.” without the character possessing any Despite divergent paths, both father prejudices. The future of “Klara and the and son wielded some distantly shared Sun” involves a permanent unem- element of predictive contemplation ployed class dislodged from the work- about what happens beneath visible force by artificial intelligence. Higher surfaces. In the case of the son, he’s Andrew Testa /New York Times education has become an even more done so over eight novels across 40 The Nobel Prize committee said Kazuo Ishiguro’s work “has uncovered elite institution, such that parents are years. His most recent is “Klara and the the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.” willing to take incredible risks to secure Sun,” another story that connects to the their children’s futures. Nobel Prize committee’s assessment of The author doesn’t profess to have his work that “has uncovered the abyss Admittedly, Klara is not a human “a clear vision on any of this, and the beneath our illusory sense of connec- being, but her advanced ability to pro- book doesn’t have a clear vision on any tion with the world.” cess information and respond dislodges of this,” he says. “It’s just me looking Ishiguro — who will do a virtual questions about what exactly makes us into the fog of the future and making reading and conversation Sunday human. She makes her way from a out odd little shapes and asking ques- through Inprint Houston — tells his new storefront window to a home, where tions. … But I do have the sense that we story through the perspective of Klara, she tries to understand how she can be are on the cusp of big changes, perhaps asolar-powered Artificial Friend with a Josie’s closest companion when they’re comparable to when we entered the keen ability to observe human behavior alone yet more of an implement when industrial age.” and interact with people. She is pur- others are around. So the shapes in the fog cause him chased to accompany young Josie, a One character asks Klara if she’s some alarm. Ishiguro makes multiple teenager who lives with her mother meant to be regarded as a person wor- references to futuristic “savage meritoc- and appears to be ailing. thy of an introduction or something racies” in which parents could make In other hands, “Klara and the Sun” more like a vacuum cleaner. fraught decisions about children in- might treadarise-of-the-robots path As has been the case since he pub- volving genetics. toward a grim dystopic end. Ishiguro lished “A Pale View of Hills” in 1982, Kazuo Ishiguro As a kid born and raised after the clarifies that “it’s not a dystopian novel. Ishiguro tells this story with narrative What: Reading and conversation Second World War, Ishiguro says the But the environment is potentially exactitude and verbal austerity: He with Jim Shepard celebration at the end of the Cold War dystopian — portraying society staring reveals information with subtle delicacy transformed into a stagnating compla- When: 5 p.m. March 7 at major changes.” In this sense, the and never sets loose a sentence that cency. novel strikes a similar tone to “Never hints at self-congratulatory poetic aspi- Details: $30 includes a copy of the “There are more close-at-home Let Me Go,” his brilliant and bracing ration. Like his other work, “Klara” book; inprinthouston.org problems like huge unemployment,” he novel about a seemingly insular world unfolds with such understatement that ‘KLARA AND THE SUN’ says. “The possible hardwiring of cur- involving a few teenagers who are part it begs to be reread so the gentle moves rent-day prejudices into the black boxes of a bigger, darker narrative. in its narrative can be observed rather By Kazuo Ishiguro of AI decision-making is another major “I can kind of see a rule being played than felt. Knopf problem and another thing that might out in my career, even if I wasn’t con- In his Nobel lecture four years ago, 320 pages, $28 take away the traditional advantage that scious of it,” he says. “But when I look Ishiguro discussed the oft-stated value liberal democracy and free-market back at the books, if the backdrop is of three-dimensional characters. And capitalism had over authoritarianism in quite settled and calm and peaceful though he saw the value in them, he centrally planned societies. …We got and pleasant, the people in the fore- professed a greater interest in the ways On multiple occasions, he has put his comfortable living wealthier lives, and ground can exemplify the shortcomings his characters interacted. “Perhaps in characters in some sort of service role: that advantage could be taken away by and weaknesses of human nature. the future,” he said in the lecture, “if I Stevens, the butler from “The Remains AI. Those things worry me more than When the backdrop is cruel and bleak, attended more to my relationships, my of the Day”; the young clones created robots rampaging down the street. the human beings at the front have the characters would take care of them- for organ harvesting in “Never Let Me “Klara, for me, was never supposed ability to display positive things about selves.” Go”; even Ryder, the famed pianist in to be a threat. She’s a vehicle for look- our nature.” So Ishiguro has spent his creative Ishiguro’s most complicated book, ing at human beings. I’m more in- That sort of balance is how Ishiguro time and energy looking beneath the “The Unconsoled,” tells his listeners terested in what she sees than what she can probe “mortality and loneliness” surface at the many interactions that “I’ll do my best for you.” is.” but still produce a novel he considers create our families, communities and By charting characters such as these, optimistic and hopeful. societies. who are committed to narrow focuses, [email protected]

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Fiction by Delia Owens. In a quiet Nonfiction America today. 1. A Court of Silver town on the North Carolina 1. How to Avoid a Flames coast in 1969, a young Climate Disaster 7. Greenlights by Sarah J. Maas. The fifth woman who survived alone by Bill Gates. A prescrip- by Matthew McConaughey. book in “A Court of Thorns in the marsh becomes a tion for what business, The Academy Award- and Roses” series. Nesta murder suspect. governments and indi- winning actor shares snip- Archeron is forced into viduals can do to work pets from the diaries he close quarters with a war- 8. The Russian toward zero emissions. kept over the past 35 rior named Cassian. by James Patterson and years. James O. Born. The 13th 2. Just As I Am 2. The Four Winds book in the “Michael Ben- by Cicely Tyson with 8. Between Two King- by Kristin Hannah. As dust the other takes on a differ- nett” series. An assassin Michelle Burford. The doms storms roll during the ent racial identity, but their killing a number of women late iconic actress de- by Suleika Jaouad. The Great Depression, Elsa fates intertwine. might disrupt the detec- scribes how she worked troops who fought over- writer of the New York must choose between tive’s wedding plans. to change perceptions seas. Times column “Life, In- saving the family and farm 5. The Sanatorium of Black women through terrupted” chronicles her or heading West. by Sarah Pearse. Elin 9. Faithless in Death her career choices. 5. A Promised Land fight with cancer and an Warner must find her es- by J.D. Robb. The 52nd by Barack Obama. In the impactful road trip. 3. The Midnight Library tranged brother’s fiancée, book of the “In Death” 3. The Sum of Us first volume of his presi- by Matt Haig. Nora Seed who goes missing as a series. Eve Dallas investi- by Heather McGhee. The dential memoirs, Barack 9. Untamed finds a library beyond the storm approaches a hotel gates the murder of a chair of the board of the Obama offers personal by Glennon Doyle. The edge of the universe that that was once a sanatori- young sculptor in the West racial justice organiza- reflections on his forma- activist and public speaker contains books with mul- um in the Swiss Alps. Village. tion Color of Change tive years and pivotal describes her journey of tiple possibilities of the analyzes the impact of moments through his first listening to her inner voice. lives one could have lived. 6. The Invisible Life of 10. Missing and En- racism on the economy. term. Addie Larue dangered 10. Four Hundred Souls 4. The Vanishing Half by V.E. Schwab.A Faustian by J.A. Jance. The 19th book 4. Walk in My Com- 6. Caste edited by Ibram X. Kendi by Brit Bennett. The lives bargain comes with a curse in the “Joanna Brady Mys- bat Boots by Isabel Wilkerson. The and Keisha N. Blain. A of twin sisters who run that affects Addie LaRue’s teries” series. The Cochise by James Patterson and Pulitzer Prize-winning compendium featuring 90 away from a Southern adventure across centuries. County sheriff’s daughter Matt Eversmann with journalist examines as- writers covering 400 years Black community at age 16 becomes involved in a Chris Mooney. A collec- pects of caste systems of African American histo- diverge as one returns and 7. Where the Crawdads missing persons case. tion of interviews with across civilizations and ry. Sing reveals a rigid hierarchy in New York Times

HH Houston Chronicle | HoustonChronicle.com | Sunday, April 11,2021 | G5 ZEST

FICTION Viet Thanh Nguyen follows up Pulitzer winner with ‘Committed’

By Andrew Dansby STAFF WRITER

n numerous little ways, Viet Thanh Nguyen sparks famil- iarity through his fiction, send- ing little tendrils that feel famil- Iiar out to readers. All the while he tells a story about life and death, communism and capitalism, colonial- ism and culture, as we codify it, that feels bracing and new. Nguyen’s “The Committed” is a follow-up to “The Sympathizer,” his Pulitzer Prize-winning debut novel. They’re connected in that they follow ahalf-Vietnamese, half-French protag- onist who finds himself in different places around the world, struggling and conniving to get through cultures profiting from and disrupted by war. In the last book, the unnamed Sympa- thizer was a sleeper agent in the Unit- ed States, a modernized take on the spy novel. In “The Committed,” an update on the crime novel genre, he becomes a Parisian drug dealer. “I wanted to know what happens to the revolutionary whose revolution has failed,” Nguyen says. “What hap- pens next? There’s a genre in liter- ature of the disillusioned revolu- tionary …I didn’t want him to run to the United States and start happily eating Happy Meals at McDonald’s. It’s a continuation of a personal ad- venture into the self. In this case, Carlos Avila Gonzalez /Staff photographer France. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen has followed up “The Sympathizer” with “The Committed.” “Based on hate mail from the last book I wrote, I wondered who was lip gloss. It’s an absurd creation of sessed” was later translated differ- left to offend. In this case, it was the American pop culture.” ently into “Demons.” One is active, French.” Which isn’t to say Nguyen seeks a one passive, but both suggest entities The French are welcome to take form of gritty verité storytelling with with strong exterior circumstances offense, as their role in a problematic his novels. The first lines of “The impressed upon them. Nguyen recog- 20th-century Vietnam has largely Sympathizer” are: “I am a spy, a nizes his Sympathizer — who is cen- been relegated to the margins of sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces.” tral to both stories, yet still mysterious history. Nguyen acknowledges a half He approaches the novel as a writ- and unknowable after two novels — century of American pop culture that er informed by decades of tradition has been forced out of places he calls has attempted to make sense of a war but also finds the soft spots that exist home. But he also wants the charac- in Vietnam with dubious roots, even when a genre is allowed to codify. The ter to be an active part of the books in among dubious wartime endeavors. recent passing of Larry McMurtry hopes of framing a different story in a “The French got off lucky,” he says. underscores a distant comparison: field of literature that is growing in- “Sure, the Americans did terrible Much in the way McMurtry tried to creasingly less insular, based on a few things in Vietnam, but at least they subvert a romanticized notion of the publishing hubs like New York and recorded them in full color, with Western with “Lonesome Dove,” London. The Sympathizer’s story — newspapers, TV, movies. Americans Nguyen undermined codified and which will have a third part — spans created the image of a bad war. The embellished spy novel certainties with three continents so far. In presenting French did terrible things, and you “The Sympathizer,” suggesting the old Viet Thanh Nguyen jarring transitions from one place to don’t have that full-color visual re- lines between good and evil were far virtual event another, it also dulls regional dis- cord. The photos depict colonial life muddier than presented. tinctions that lead to a sense of other- as romantic.” “The Committed” pivots from that When: 7 p.m. April 12 ness. Colonialism, capitalism, social- Nguyen’s early life was permeated point toward the crime-novel genre. Details: $5; inprinthouston.org ism and other -isms have a dubious with forced movement. His family fled One needn’t read “The Sympathiz- track record. Nguyen’s books call out North Vietnam when he was a new- er” to appreciate “The Committed.” It ‘THE COMMITTED’ their many shortcomings while also born. When he was just 4, Saigon fell, helps, but Nguyen deftly threads finding more basic connections be- By Viet Thanh Nguyen and the family fled to the United backstory into the newer book. Plot tween people. So his Sympathizer is a States. Here, he was separated from points prove secondary to thematic Grove Press complicated entity: problematic mor- his parents. They were reunited and points, which are sharp: that our age 345 pages, $27 ally, questionable as a reliable narra- settled in California, where Nguyen, of information allows greater aware- tor. But quite reliable as a vessel for who’s now 50, grew up as many ness of a global connectivity in which making us think about the ways we American children born in the 1970s the acts of a people have dramatic guilty.”A moral opacity obscures the organize ourselves. did: in a culture trying to make sense effects at home and abroad. Rally line, which is a brilliant distillation of “The Vietnamese and Asians are of that conflict. He watched the mov- around or against the term “globaliza- how we wish to sidestep blame, when often deposited in the American ies that tried to address what he calls tion,” but these books find a folly in cultures should share it equally. It imagination as victims,” he says. “And “a critique of this American mytholo- suggesting the concept is new. Na- echoes an ambiguity found in Albert in literature, people have picked up gy.” And he also saw those that sought tions have for centuries looked be- Camus’ writing, just one of numerous on that for years. These novels were to do something else. yond their borders and taken actions points of reference that come up in designed to reject those terms. Irecounted an old communications that have repercussions. Nguyen’s work, though none of them There’s some agency that I felt was professor’s belief that “Rambo,” the So “The Committed,” like its prede- prove a pinpoint reference for his crucial to acknowledge among Asians second of the Sylvester Stallone “First cessor, isn’t exactly a book about work. and Vietnamese. It’s a complicated Blood” movies, was one of the most Vietnam or the United States or His Sympathizer — who seems thing. Still, a victim says, ‘Bad things important movies about the war in France. Rather it’s about the small- rootless — and the humor threaded were done to me.’ When you have Vietnam because it was so naked in its ness of the world. Nguyen points out throughout the book both recall Kurt agency, you’re potentially at risk for messaging: The film sought to make a the hundreds of thousands of Viet- Vonnegut, though tonally “The Com- doing terrible things. victory out of a conflict that ended namese immigrants who poured into mitted” doesn’t particularly connect “American culture understands poorly for all involved, particularly the States in the mid-’70s. to that writer. Nguyen does find some this, which is why there’s a rich histo- the American armed forces. “Many have become part of a larger value in “the way he conveyed the ry of heroes but also antiheroes in “It speaks to how I was sort of American success story,” he says. “But incredible devastation of the bombing popular culture. So I hope there’s a brainwashed at the time,” Nguyen there are still struggles for Asian of Dresden. It pushed him to create a complex humanity at the heart of says. “I remember I sort of enjoyed it. Americans. They’re in the news, novel that pushed the boundaries of these novels. The Sympathizer is a But I now see that naked expression especially recently. And there’s also realism. … Sometimes you take complicated person. He’s a victim, of American machismo and resent- this idea that we change who we don’t chances and experiment with differ- and he’s more than that. He’s done ment at having lost this war. And if wish to rescue and welcome. Being a ent strategies to convey a dislocation terrible things, and he’s witnessed you watch it now, Rambo is helped by refugee doesn’t necessarily give you you’ve undergone. From a writerly terrible things. If readers can ac- this beautiful mixed-race Vietnamese greater empathy for other people. We point of view, it can be fun, these knowledge that complexity, that’s woman. ‘Co’ is her only name, and see that with the southern border.” terrible things taking place with a what I’m looking for. And it’s what she’s wearing full makeup while run- Early in Nguyen’s crime novel, his playful story and text that allows you I’ve come to expect from stories by ning around in the jungle. And she’s narrator mentions his killing of two to work with that.” people of color in this country.” killed by the Viet Cong and dies in men. “They were innocent or mostly Nguyen’s titles faintly echo one by Rambo’s arms, her lips glistening with innocent, and I was guilty or mostly Fyodor Dostoevsky, whose “The Pos- [email protected]

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