Things We Lost to the Water - Softcover

Nguyen, Eric

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593311035 ISBN 13: 9780593311035

Publisher: Vintage, 2022

Synopsis

A captivating novel about an immigrant Vietnamese family who settles in New Orleans and struggles to remain connected to one another as their lives are inextricably reshaped. This stunning debut is "vast in scale and ambition, while luscious and inviting ... in its intimacy" (The New York Times Book Review).

When Huong arrives in New Orleans with her two young sons, she is jobless, homeless, and worried about her husband, Cong, who remains in Vietnam. As she and her boys begin to settle in to life in America, she continues to send letters and tapes back to Cong, hopeful that they will be reunited and her children will grow up with a father.

But with time, Huong realizes she will never see her husband again. While she attempts to come to terms with this loss, her sons, Tuan and Binh, grow up in their absent father's shadow, haunted by a man and a country trapped in their memories and imaginations. As they push forward, the three adapt to life in America in different ways: Huong gets involved with a Vietnamese car salesman who is also new in town; Tuan tries to connect with his heritage by joining a local Vietnamese gang; and Binh, now going by Ben, embraces his adopted homeland and his burgeoning sexuality. Their search for identity--as individuals and as a family--threatens to tear them apart, un­til disaster strikes the city they now call home and they are suddenly forced to find a new way to come together and honor the ties that bind them.

About this title

About the Author

ERIC NGUYEN earned an MFA in Creative Writing from McNeese State University in Louisiana. He has been awarded fellowships from Lambda Literary, Voices of Our Nation Arts (VONA), and the Tin House Writers Workshop. He is the editor in chief of diaCRITICS.org. He lives in Washington, DC. Things We Lost to the Water is his first novel.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

August 1979

New Orleans is at war. The long howl in the sky; what else can it mean?
 
Huong drops the dishes into the sink and grabs the baby before he starts crying. She begins running toward the door—but then remembers: this time, another son. She forgets his name temporarily, the howl is so loud. What’s important is to find him.
 
Is he under the bed? No, he is not under the bed. Is he hiding in the closet? No, he is not in the closet. Is he in the bathroom, then, behind the plastic curtains, sitting scared in the tub? He is not in the bathroom, behind the plastic curtains, sitting scared in the tub. And as she turns around he’s at the door, holding on to the frame, his eyes watering, his cheeks red.
 
“M?,” he cries. Mom. The word reminds Huong of everything she needs to know. In the next moment she grabs his hand and pulls him toward her chest.
 
With this precious cargo, these two sons, she darts across the apartment, an arrow flying away from its bow, a bullet away from its gun. She’s racing toward the door and leaping down the steps—but she can’t move fast enough. The air is like water, it’s like run­ning through water. Through an ocean. She feels the wetness on her legs and the water rising. And the sky, the early evening sky, with its spotting of stars already, is streaked red and orange like a fire, like an explosion suspended midair in that moment before the crush, the shattering, the death she’s always imagined until some­one yells Stop, someone tells her to Stop.
 
And just like that, the sirens hush and the silence is violent: it slices, it cuts.
 
 
“Hurricane alarm,” Bà Giang says. The old woman drops her ciga­rette. “Just a hurricane alarm. A test. Nothing to be afraid of.” She reaches over and cups Huong’s cheek.
 
“What do you mean?” Huong asks.
 
“A test. They’re doing a test. In case something happens,” Bà Giang says. “Go home now, cung oi. Go home. Get some rest. It’s getting late.”
 
Home.
 
Late.
 
Getting.
 
There.
 
“Late.” Huong understands, or maybe she does not. A thousand thoughts are still settling in her mind. Where were the sounds from before? Not the alarm, but the grating calls of the grackles in the trees, the whistling breeze, a car speeding past—where are they now?
She notices Tu?n at the gates. Her eyes light up.
 
“Tu?n oi,” she calls.
 
Tu?n holds on to the bars of the gate and watches three boys riding past on bicycles. One stands on his pedals. Another rides without hands but only for a second before grabbing—in a pan­icked motion—the handlebars. A younger one tries to keep up on training wheels. Three boys. Three brothers.
 
“Tu?n oi,” Huong calls again.
 
Tu?n waves as the boys ride leisurely past. When they’re gone, he returns, and Huong feels a mixture of pure happiness, comfort, and relief.
 
Up the dirt road. A mother and her sons. Hand in hand.

Edition details

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0593311035
• ISBN 13: 9780593311035
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304