Book Synopsis:
Four lives, entwined forever by decisions made in a time of conflict. But what happens decades later when they unexpectedly converge once more?
Trang and Quynh: sisters who leave their rural village for the bustling city of Saigon, desperate to find work to help their impoverished parents. When they take jobs as ‘ bar girls’, paid to flirt with American GIs, they must decide whether they are willing to turn their backs on the people they used to be.
Phong: one of the thousands of mixed-race children abandoned by their American fathers and Vietnamese mothers. Phong grows up surrounded by rejection, insulted as a ‘Black American imperialist’, and a ‘child of the enemy’. But he never gives up hope of finding his parents and proving he is more than a ‘bui doi’: more than the ‘dust of life’.
Dan: A former American helicopter pilot still plagued by regrets about his actions during the Việt Nam war. Now he has returned in the hope of confronting the demons that refuse to fall silent.
Set between the Việt Nam war and the present day, Dust Child is a sweeping epic of family secrets and hidden heartache, from an internationally celebrated author.
My Review:
Dust child is a beautifully written, emotional and harrowing book that has stayed with me long after reading it.
The story is told in two timelines. One, set in 1969, follows two sisters Trang and Quynh as they live through the Vietnam war. While the other set in 2016 follows Phang, a dust child, who is hoping to travel to America to find his father and Dan a Vietnam war veteran visiting the country to try and help his PTSD. The three stories blend together well and there is a real sense of connection between them as all have experienced the same thing. Unusually for me I didn’t have a favourite timeline but instead just enjoyed being taken along in the story and watching everything unfold.
As you can imagine this book really packs an emotional punch as we learn more about how innocent people suffered and how people were treated. It always amazes me how humans can treat each other so cruelly at times and my heart absolutely broke whilst reading some of the characters stories. I liked that the author doesn’t just make this a sad book though as there is a feeling of hope in the book too and I loved to see the strength some of the characters showed.
Huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and to the publisher for my copy of this book via Netgalley.
About The Author:
Born and raised in Việt Nam, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai is the author of the international bestseller THE MOUNTAINS SING, runner-up for the 2021 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, winner of the 2020 BookBrowse Best Debut Award, the 2021 International Book Awards, the 2021 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award, and the 2020 Lannan Literary Award Fellowship for Fiction. She has published twelve books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction in Vietnamese and English and has received some of the top literary prizes in Việt Nam including the Poetry of the Year 2010 from the Hà Nội Writers Association. Her writing has been translated into twenty languages and has appeared in major publications including the New York Times. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. Quế Mai is a tireless advocate for the rights of disadvantaged groups in Việt Nam and has founded several scholarship programs. She was named by Forbes Vietnam as one of 20 inspiring women of 2021.
Over The Rainbow Blog 
Excellent review, Joanna. This is one I definitely want to read. I want to learn more about this time and the people who lived during it.
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