Thursday, March 7, 2019

Mrs. Rossi's Dream

Booklist Starred Review

Starred Review

Catherine Rossi's dream, in 1987, is to find the remains of her son, Lieutenant Nicola Rossi, the only American unaccounted for after a deadly firefight in Vietnam in 1967. So she travels to the Mekong Delta with her daughter, Chi Lan, 18, adopted from a Catholic Vietnamese orphanage when she was five. At the small inn where the Rossis stay, employee Le Giang believes Mrs. Rossi's quest is highly unlikely to be fulfilled, but he comes to treasure the companionship of Chi Lan. The narration alternates between the voices of Lieutenant Rossi in 1967 and Le Giang, in the present of 1987, a man born and conscripted in the north who defected to the army of the south, then was imprisoned for "reeducation" in the north for 10 years. Both men describe the horrors and deprivations of war, along with the bonds of fellowship forged, as well as the natural beauty and dangers of the country, on the way to a healing climax. Ha's prose is so clear and vivid, whether describing a dying soldier's wounds or local flora and fauna, and his message is so powerfully understated that this beautifully written novel should have a place alongside the best fiction of the Vietnam War.Booklist 
 
A powerful story of both the human damage of war and the the power of healing and reconciliation through forgiveness. The author shifts between the points of view of the Vietnamese and the American characters, both during the war and in its sad aftermath, in such a richly imagined, three-dimensional way that each character--from the different sides of the war, and from two very different cultures, becomes fully human to the reader--which reinforces the way the characters either diminish their own humanity by dehumanizing others, or--along with the reader--discover each others' humanity and learn to mourn its loss or gain its gifts. Along with all that I deeply admire the writing itself: the way the author describes the beauty of the country, which, as with the human characters we get to know so intimately, makes its destruction so terrible, and, in particular, the way he describes foods: the different foods, the way they look, smell, are prepared, taste--food, its absence or its sustaining power, so central to Vietnamese culture and life, becomes a character itself in the novel. It was a pleasure to discover this writer and his work.Wayne Karlin

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