The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. This is just a partial review since I didn’t finish the book. The novel comes with strong credentials. Nguyen is a professor of English at the University of Southern California, and the book even won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, along with several other awards.
The story is set during the Vietnam War and follows a captain who, although born in Vietnam, studied in the U.S. and became highly accustomed to American life. He later returns to Vietnam and becomes a police officer. As Saigon is about to fall to the Viet Cong, he and a hundred others manage to escape under precarious conditions, eventually becoming refugees in the U.S.
One thing I really liked about the book is its portrayal of the tightly knit Vietnamese refugee community in America. Their strong sense of cooperation and mutual support, I believe, contributed to their remarkable success as an immigrant group in the U.S. today.
That said, although I didn’t finish the book, if asked, I’d say I liked the story itself. My issue is with the writing style, it just felt too exhausting. I understand that the author enjoys using elaborate language, but, come on, who actually says, “I dragged myself to the mossy, toothless mouth of the toilet”? To me, the prose feels overdone, and I think the book could have been even better with tighter editing.