These annotations were written while I was working on my MFA in Creative Writing, 2013-2016.
Boettcher, Thomas D. Vietnam: The Valor and the Sorrow.
Boston-Toronto: Little Brown, 1985. Black and white photos and myriad sidebars are used liberally in this book giving it feel like a newspaper account of the war. This effect makes it easy to read and allows for a great deal of "cross referencing" in one spread. The first 200 pages are dedicated to the history of Vietnam and how we came to be involved there. The second half of the book covers the air war, the land war and "The Press, the Protest, the Talks," bringing it home. The book ends with the classic image of Saigon evacuation: the helicopter atop the US Embassy.
Coffey, Michael. Days of Infamy, Military Blunders of the 20th Century.
New York: Little, Brown & Co, 1999. This is not solely about Vietnam but its description of the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 is concise and insightful. Had the heads of state read this passage about the power of the conviction, determination and resourcefulness of the North Vietnamese they may have fled Indochina and quickly.
Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History, The First Complete Account of Vietnam at War.
New York: Viking Press, 1983. Written as a companion to the WGBH Public Broadcasting Series (Boston) Vietnam: A Television History, this book is a 726-page volume of comprehensive and insightful first person, historical, philosophical and analytical narrative. A goodly part of the material comes from his own experiences and observations as a journalist covering the war, the rest from interviews conducted while creating the television series as well as from the “vast body of literature published on the subject.” The writing style is accessible and inviting. All one needs, then, is a week to read it without food or sleep.
Kidder, Tracy. My Detachment.
New York: Random House, 2005. The inside flap reads: “My Detachment” is a war story like none you have read before, an unromanticized portrait of a young man coming to age. In the controversial war that defined a generation. In an astonishingly honest, comic and moving account … master storyteller Tracy Kidder writes …” I quote all this because I can almost read the way he and Richard Todd constructed this intro—I am in fact reading about Kidder’s writing of this memoir in their book Good Prose. This intimacy is almost frightening as I have heard Kidder’s voice reading his memoir, have heard his words in Mountains Beyond Mountains and have been privy to his most inner thoughts in Good Prose. All this to say that My Detachment is an excellent memoir that tries not to impress … and in that way, does.
McCloud, Bill. What Should We Tell Our Children About Vietnam?
London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989. This volume is a compilation of short essays or letters from people from all walks of life in America: teachers, politicians, military officers both current and from the Vietnam era. Kissinger's entry is surprisingly humble.
O’ Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried.
Boston: Mariner-Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. (First ed. Mariner, 2009; © O’Brien, 1990) In this pivotal book about the Vietnam War, O’Brien meditates on the weight of war, whether it be a gun, a backpack, a love letter or the reason why. Touted as “A Work of Fiction” on the book’s very title page, the book screams TRUTH so loudly that one is inclined to read that phrase again and again to be sure it says fiction and not nonfiction. However as O’Brien writes:
“In many cases, a true war story cannot be believed. If you believe it, be skeptical. It’s a question of credibility Often the crazy stuff is true and the normal stuff isn’t, because the normal stuff is necessary to make you believe the truly incredible craziness.
“In other cases you can’t even tell a true war story. Sometimes it’s just beyond telling.” (68)
Pham, Andrew. Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam.
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999. Pham's book C&M struck a cord in me, especially when he touted one of his reasons for writing the book. "I was there," he wrote. "I was there." This was a pressing thought in my own cranium as I was wrestling about whether I had the temerity, courage or even responsibility to write about Vietnam. Admittedly. the struggles and experiences he recounts differ greatly from my own Caucasian experiences and observations but his language and imagery, his braiding of the past and present inspire me nonetheless.
Pham, Andrew. The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars.
New York: Three Rivers Press, 2008. I really enjoyed reading this book because, by now, I am quite familiar with the history (well, modestly so but more than the average bear) of Vietnam and so reading the place names and battles and the eras felt comfortable like an old coat. The woven vignettes are poignant because they have so much to do with loss and with war, but there is also love between family, between friends and Pham's love for the country comes through, too. It is one of those books that I promised myself I would read again, and soon.
Snepp, Frank. Decent Interval: An Insider’s Account of Saigon’s Indecent End Told by the CIA’s Chief Strategy Analyst in Vietnam.
New York, Vintage-Random House, 1978. Snepp’s very conversational style belies the intricate, intense, and intimate information he relates about the very last years, months, weeks, and days of the U.S.’s dismal failure in South Vietnam. He was a compatriot of my father’s and was on the guest list for our “Big Party” in September 1974. I am not sure if he attended or not.
Taber, Charles Eugene. Get Out Any Way You Can.
Haverford, PA: Infinity Publishing, 2003. In a straightforward account of the last days in Vietnam, this colleague of my father provides invaluable information about the House Seven evacuation. He, by and large, takes responsibility for the evacuation but only because he is writing about it in first person, I think. He does not seem to be trying to pretend that he was in charge of House Seven. It is a perfunctory retelling done at the behest of his children.
Tram, Dang Thuy. Last Night I Dreamed of Peace.
New York: Harmony-Random, 2005. The story of this diary is amazing. The American soldier who found it was under orders to destroy all documents without military value. Fortunately, his Vietnamese translator spoke up, telling him "Don't burn this one...it has fire in it already." The words of this doctor, a 24-year-old young woman, bring to life the struggle and hardship that the North Vietnamese faced in the "American War." It makes universal--and poignant--the devastation imposed by the ultimate quagmire of the 20th century.
Trussoni, Danielle. Falling through the Earth.
New York: Henry Holt, 2006. Trussoni’s account of growing up with a father suffering from Post Traumatic Shock Disorder is a harrowing account of a childhood. One even begins to wonder how she became such an amazing writer after spending a childhood either in a bar (at the age of 11) or skipping school and eating Cheetos for dinner. However, the way she weaves the stories from her own childhood, her father’s stories from the war, and her own travelog of a “current” trip to Vietnam never leaves the reader wondering where they are, but embroiled in the midst of emotion, tension and, ultimately, compassion. My favorite quotes are:
“I didn’t know anything about Robert McNamara back then. I had never even heard his name before. At that point in my life—before I studied the war—Vietnam was not a historical event. It was just something that happened to my family.” (170)
The young monk translated. “He says you must pray.”
Pray for what?” I asked, as he lit the incense with the plastic burner.
“You will know,” he said, guiding me to the altar, “when you begin.”
… “The [video] tape forced me to see that, more than anything, my father had been defeated by Vietnam. He had lost his war, his pride. Nothing would change that. P I folded my hands, as I had been taught to do in grade school, and I asked for my father’s illness to disappear. I prayed that all the terrible things that happened in Vietnam—to Americans and Vietnamese alike—would never happen again. I prayed for the one thing my father and I had never shared: peace. (211-13)
…although twenty thousand American children were orphaned by the war, it was only when I looked at my own life that I saw the hole that Vietnam created, for all of us. (239)
Books for Young Readers
Since I spent some of my masters working on the idea of a novel for young readers, I also read widely in that genre.
Caputo, Philip. 10,000 Days of Thunder: A History of the Vietnam War.
New York: Antheum Books for Young Readers, 2005. Pulitzer Prize winner Philip Caputo does an amazing job creating an overview of the Vietnam War for young people. With short chapters and full-page photos, the book is very accessible. It does not do the impact of the Vietnam era short-shrift, however; it covers every aspect in clear detail from the causes to the effects, using anecdotes and profiles and even some personal accounts. My favorite part is when he writes that the Vietnam War began for him on March 8, 1965, when his battalion landed at Da Nang, but it did not end for him until he met a North Vietnamese soldier-turned-poet at a writers' event in 1990. They found that they had never fought each other but had been stationed eerily close to one another, and had both written poems about carrying wounded comrades in the rain. Ngan Vinh poured them each a glass of vodka and they drank together. Caputo wrote, "Vinh embraced me and said, 'You and me Philip, we are brothers in arms,' and that night, June 21, 1990, was when the Vietnam War ended for me."
Berg, Ann E. All the Broken Pieces.
New York: Scholastic, 2009. A long-ago writer friend of mine, Ann E. Burg, wrote this young adult book about an Amerasian boy who was adopted by an American family after the war. I had told her about my father and the way he helped so many to survive who would otherwise have not. She wrote this in a message to me:
I remember when you told me that story and it actually inspired one of the Veteran scenes in All the Broken Pieces. As I wrote, I liked to think that I was (in some small way) honoring your father..."we did some good" one of the veterans said, [or they never would have come to America in droves] and I was thinking of your dad...
Lai, Thanhaa. Inside Out and Back Again.
New York: Harper, 2011. This young adult novel written in a series of connected poems is a moving account of a young girl's evacuation from Saigon in 1975. Her verses are followed by a date making this a diary-like book but de-emphasizing the chronology enough that the individual experiences and moods she portrays stand front and center. A National Book Award Winner.
Lai, Thanhaa. Listen, Slowly.
New York: Harper, 2015. This is Lai's second book about a young girl in Vietnam. The first was a novel in poems about leaving Vietnam in 1974 (Inside Out and Back Again). In this book, the character (also, seemingly, based loosely on her), goes to Vietnam at the behest of her parents to help her grandmother. It is entertaining and engaging but I also noticed that the sensibilities of the female teen Vietnamese characters (It took me years to finish Bich Minh Nguyen’s Pioneer Girl) tend to be so whiny that it turns me off. I will have to try a third such book to see whether this is universal or it's "just me."
Warren, Andrea. Escape from Saigon.
New York: Farrar-Sunburst, 2008. This book chronicles the life of Hoang Van Long, a Vietnamese boy orphaned during the Vietnam War. The author skillfully recreates his harrowing childhood, his placement in an orphanage, his escape from South Vietnam via Operation Babylift and his new life in America as Matthew Ray Steiner, a beloved member of the Steiner family.
Kadohata, Cynthia. Cracker! The Best Dog in Vietnam.
New York: Atheneum-Simon & Schuster, 2007. I just finished this book an hour ago and I think my cheeks are still a little bit damp. What is it about a dog's loyalty that is so moving?? Told in the third person, this book does an excellent job of bringing the reader into a "close third" with all the lead characters: Cracker the German Shepherd, Willie her first real owner, and Rick the dog handler and her ultimate owner.
Over the course of Cracker's time with Willie and her "shipping out" to be a scout dog for the US military, we brought deeply into the action: Willie's childhood joys and travails, and his distress at losing his beloved pet; Cracker's love for his masters and for wieners and chickens, and for her snappy intelligence; Rick's struggle to be his own man and to return from Vietnam whole, and his stubborn determination to bring Cracker home alive too. It was also a really good glimpse into the day-to-day lives of the soldiers in Vietnam and some of the issues of the war itself. I am sad I'm done reading it. Like Willie, I am going to miss Cracker!
Picture Books
I have a penchant for picture books, both for the art and for the fact that they have to tell the truth in a startlingly simple way.
Alberti, Theresa. Vietnam ABCs: A Book About the People and Places of Vietnam.
Illustrated by Natascha Alex Blanks, this beautiful book shares myriad details of Vietnam's daily life and culture as well as numerous "Fast Facts" including such things at the fact that Vietnam is 13th in the world in population, the Vietnamese name of the cone-shaped hat often associated with Asia is non la and that everyone changes their age on Tet, the Vietnamese New Year. "W is for War" is relevant to my research:
W is for War. From 1954-1975, Vietnam was divided into North Vietnam and South Vietnam, and a war was fought between them. Americans cal it the Vietnam War. The Vietnamese call it the American War because the United States was involved from 1950 to 1973 (!). The United States helped non-communist South Vietnam fight a losing battle against communist North Vietnam. The war was a terrible time for Vietnam and the United States.
Collins, Suzanne. Year of the Jungle, Memories from the Home Front.
New York: Scholastic: 2013. Illustrated by James Proimos. Hunger Games author delves into nonfiction in this memoir-esque story of a young girl who has to see her dad leave to the jungles of Viet Nam. At once cute and whimsical (“I fix Rascal [the cat] a plate of crayons but, as usual, he won't eat them”), it is also heartbreaking and honest.
From the TV, I hear the words "Viet Nam," and I look up. // Explosions. // Helicopters. // Guns. // Soldiers on the ground. Some of them aren't moving.
My mom runs across the living room and turns off the TV.
"It's okay. Your dad is okay," she says.
I don't say anything. Later I hide in the closet and cry.
Her father's postcards from the front remind me a little bit of my father's letters to me from Saigon. I wish I had them all.
Jeffery, Gary. The Vietnam War.
New York: Crabtree Publishing Co., 2014. Illustrated by Nick Spender, this graphic novel depicts one battle in 1965 and two in 1967. It also provides an overview of the war in two preface panels and a closing panel. Probably a very valuable resource for boys to read about the war although it paints perhaps a too-glorious picture of it in the cartoon-like stories.
Schaefer, Ted and Lola. The Vietnam Veteran's Memorial.
Chicago: Heinemann Library, 2006. A "Symbols of Freedom" book for very early readers. Clear and comprehensive, it offers a good visual and text combination that is informative, and accurate but not scary.