{"id":960,"date":"2010-09-17T10:40:08","date_gmt":"2010-09-17T17:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dvan.org\/?p=960"},"modified":"2018-10-14T22:20:47","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T05:20:47","slug":"angie-chaus-quiet-as-they-come-a-new-voice-in-vietnamese-american-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dvan.org\/2010\/09\/angie-chaus-quiet-as-they-come-a-new-voice-in-vietnamese-american-literature\/","title":{"rendered":"Quiet As They Come: A New Voice in Vietnamese American Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"

diaCRITICS will periodically have guest blogs. Here’s one from Stephen Sohn<\/a>, professor of English at Stanford University, where he is completing a manuscript on Asian American cultural production. He often reviews Asian American literature at his blog<\/a> and here he discusses Angie Chau<\/a>‘s new collection of short stories, Quiet as They Com<\/em>e\u00a0(IG Publishing 2010).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Angie Chau<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Angie Chau\u2019s Quiet as They Come <\/em>is a luminous debut.\u00a0 It compels in the quiet force of family dramas tinged with transnational traumas.\u00a0 Chau often shifts from first person to third, granting readers various entry points into her characters, but all stories revolve around an extended family of Vietnamese refugees, who have settled in the Northern California Bay Area to start new lives.\u00a0 The first story, \u201cHunger,\u201d immediately sets the tone for the challenging obstacles that these individuals will face, especially on the level of their class bearings.\u00a0 Chau will perfectly render the tragedy that a group of children face in the limits of their financial capital as so many must share just one delicious pizza slice.\u00a0\u00a0 In \u201cThe Pussycats,\u201d Chau will cleverly employ the challenges of learning American culture through the lens of a mother\u2019s desire to placate her child.\u00a0 In this case, the daughter wants a kitten.\u00a0 The title refers to a porn theater that the mother accidentally takes her child to, as she had thought that the movie was literally about cats. While the premise is at first funny, Chau\u2019s story resplendently shifts in tone and approach as we come to understand the mother\u2019s alienation, as her husband withers away in a Communist re-education camp in Vietnam.\u00a0 Thus, the potent erotic force that she beholds on screen, while initially horrifying and disgusting to her, is also paradoxically attractive.\u00a0 We see how much she misses her husband, how the letters that he sends to her become lifelines to the future she believes she might still be able to salvage.\u00a0 \u201cEverything Forbidden\u201d sets up a different familial trajectory.\u00a0 In this case, a mother is suspected of beating her daughter after strange bruises are found on her daughter\u2019s back.\u00a0 What the social worker comes to discover is that the daughter had received a traditional folk-medical treatment given to her directly by her mother.\u00a0 However, when the mother discovers that her daughter may have implicated her in abuse and didn\u2019t explicitly refute that claim, she comes to understand the perils of love and guardianship.<\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

These first three short stories are really a gateway into the others, as families both grow and disintegrate under various strains.\u00a0 Mysteries that appear in one story are addressed in others and we see children as they mature and must bear the burdens and traumas of the parental generation.\u00a0 In the final story, one of the young children in \u201cHunger\u201d is now practically fully grown and has accompanied her mother back to Vietnam.\u00a0 She reveals, \u201c \u2018I\u2019m sorry but I\u2019m glad there was a war.\u00a0 Really, I just can\u2019t imagine living like this\u2019\u201d (184).\u00a0 Her attitude here is one that regards Vietnam through the lens of one who finds it less civilized, but the statement also demonstrates how little she understands of her parent\u2019s generation, the ones who retain memories of their perilous flights from Vietnam.\u00a0 The readers are, of course, privy to much of this knowledge, and so we continually see how characters speak to each other, but cannot fully communicate their needs.\u00a0 Chau thus showcases the very perils of the immigrant experience, as the chasm between parents and their children widens to the point that one\u2019s own family can seem strange and otherworldly.\u00a0 A brilliant, if understated book, and one that can and will certainly be adopted in the classroom.<\/p>\n

Buy the Book here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

~<\/p>\n

Did you like this post? Then please take the time to rate it (above) and share it (below). Ratings for top posts are listed on the sidebar. Sharing (on email, Facebook, etc.) helps spread the word about diaCRITICS. Thanks!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

diaCRITICS will periodically have guest blogs. Here’s one from Stephen Sohn, professor of English at Stanford University, where he is completing a manuscript on Asian American cultural production. He often reviews Asian American literature at his blog and here he discusses Angie Chau‘s new collection of short stories, Quiet as They Come\u00a0(IG Publishing 2010). Angie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,50],"tags":[144,581],"yoast_head":"\nA New Voice in Vietnamese American Literature<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Vietnamese American Literature: Stephen Sohn discusses Angie Chau\u2018s new collection of short stories, "Quiet as They Come."\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dvan.org\/2010\/09\/angie-chaus-quiet-as-they-come-a-new-voice-in-vietnamese-american-literature\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A New Voice in Vietnamese American Literature\" \/>\n<meta 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