Things We Lost to the Water

In this beautifully written debut, which begins in 1970s Vietnam, a woman flees Saigon with her sons to to escape the encroaching Communist regime. She can't understand how her husband was left behind—he was ready to board the escape boat with his family, but she must make her way to New Orleans without him. Over the years, her countless letters go unanswered, but she longs for her sons to have a father again, and wonders how much their struggles would be eased were he present. The story unfolds over the course of thirty years: we see those boys grow up and wrestle with identity, family, and their pervasive sense of otherness. Those reading with a literary lens will enjoy noting the ways Nguyen plays with the water motif in this perceptive character study. Similar in tone to Ocean Vuong's <a href="https://bookshop.org/a/1047/9780525562023" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" >On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous</a>; if you enjoyed the one, you'll like the other.