An interesting topic. I've read books about soldiers' children before, and they weren't welcomed anywhere. In Germany, these were mostly children of black fathers during World War II; with the others, it wasn't so noticeable unless you lived in a village and everyone knew about it.
This is about the children of Vietnamese women and American soldiers. Regardless of whether the fathers were black or white, it was immediately noticeable. And the children suffered greatly. In this book, they not only grew up with the certainty of having a foreign father but also that their mother didn't want them and they had to grow up in an orphanage with no family to support them.
It was good to learn more about the topic, but I wasn't entirely thrilled with the book and the writing style. Again and again, she switches to Vietnamese, often translating it afterwards, but not always. And even in the former case, it disrupts the flow. Overall, the writing isn't very fluid; many things remain completely unclear. Sometimes you don't know what she's even talking about. It's nice to learn something about Vietnamese culture, but she assumes too much. Perhaps it's clear to people who speak Vietnamese or know Vietnam, but for others, it's still very confusing.
There are also several errors in the book that a native English speaker should have filtered out. A shame.
On Goodreads, someone recommends also reading Bao Ninh's book "The Sorrow of War" (Goodreads), the story of the war from the perspective of a Vietnamese soldier. And the author's first book "The Mountains Sing" (Goodreads) which takes place during the war.
Although I've often read that the first book is much better than this one, I'm not sure if I want to read another book by Phan Quế Mai Nguyễn anytime soon.
The quote she gives on page 267 is also not exactly correct:
"We are the unwilling
Led by the unqualified
Doing the unnecessary
For the ungrateful."
This is the correct one:
"We the unwilling
Led by the unknowing
Are doing the impossible
For the ungrateful
We have done so much
For so long, with so little
We are now qualified to do
Anything with nothing,
Forever."
Konstantin Josef Jireček
However, most members of our book club enjoyed the book quite a bit, especially because they learned something about the people of Vietnam and the impact of the war on their lives. We also discussed the different perspectives held by people in Asia and Western Europe.
I read this with my German book club in May 2025
From the back cover:
"It is 1969, and sisters Trang and Quynh watch helplessly as their rural village is transformed by the outbreak of war. Desperate to help their impoverished parents, they head to the thronging city of Sai Gon and join the women working as 'bar girls', paid to flirt with American GIs. What follows will test their sisterhood in ways they could never have foreseen.
Decades later Viet Nam is thriving, successfully emerging out of the shadow of war. But Dan and Phong, two men whose lives were transformed by their experiences on different sides of the conflict, are struggling to leave the past behind.
But what happens when these four characters unexpectedly come together once more, and each is forced to grapple with the legacy of decisions made in the past – decisions that continue to reverberate through all their lives
Dust Child is their unforgettable story."
