A Man of Two Faces

A Memoir, a History, a Memorial

By: Viet Thanh Nguyen

Narrated by: Viet Thanh Nguyen

Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

The highly original, blistering, and unconventional memoir by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer, which has now sold over more than million copies worldwide.

With insight, humor, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces Viet Thanh Nguyen rewinds the film of his own life. He expands the genre of personal memoir by acknowledging larger stories of refugeehood, colonization, and ideas about Vietnam and America, writing with his trademark sardonic wit and incisive analysis, as well as a deep emotional openness about his life as a father and a son.

At the age of four, Nguyen and his family are forced to flee his hometown of Ban Mê Thuột and come to the USA as refugees. After being removed from his brother and parents and homed with a family on his own, Nguyen is later allowed to resettle into his own family in suburban San José. But there is violence hidden behind the sunny façade of what he calls AMERICATM. One Christmas Eve, when Nguyen is nine, while watching cartoons at home, he learns that his parents have been shot while working at their grocery store, the SàiGòn Mới, a place where he sometimes helps price tins of fruit with a sticker gun. Years later, as a teenager, the blood-stirring drama of the films of the Vietnam War such as Apocalypse Now throw Nguyen into an existential crisis: How can he be both American and Vietnamese, both the killer and the person being killed? When he learns about an adopted sister who has stayed back in Vietnam and ultimately visits her, he grows to understand just how much his parents have left behind. And as his parents age, he worries increasingly about their comfort and care and realizes that some of their older wounds are reopening.

Profound in its emotions and brilliant in its thinking about cultural power, A Man of Two Faces explores the necessity of both forgetting and of memory, the promises America so readily makes and breaks, and the exceptional life story of one of the most original and important writers working today.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Viet Thanh Nguyen. Recorded by arrangement with Grove Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic, Inc. (P)2023 Audible, Inc.

Emotions revealed

The author revealed many emotions despite his claim to not have been an emotional man:) it was an excellent reminder of what white American continues to do to anyone who doesn't fit that category.

The author bares his soul and brain in the most beautiful and honest way.

The historical interweaving of story and events/politics is masterful. Some hold my breath moments - as well as the uncanny ability to be deeply funny in the midst of difficulty.

Interesting stream of consciousness

As feelings require no reason, I feel the first part of the book was sycophant, and chaotic. But I enjoyed the narration of the author’s love and life, and his “Americanized” voice.

Beautiful, Jarring, and Timely

Viet Thanh Nguyen is a treasure along the path toward a more thoughtful, loving, and conscious future. I am so grateful for the way his words have both delighted and disrupted me as an American and member of the Armenian diaspora. Maybe I cannot yet see a means for us to wear our allegiances more like basketball jerseys that are tossed in the laundry at the end of the day, but it’s a salve to feel solidarity in the search. Reading The Sympathizer, The Refugees, and The Committed beforehand offered abundant fertile soil for this text to root and flourish. While the book stands well enough alone - or first - it’s been a blessing to have context.

Utter transparency of both faces

I suffered right along with you, every step. You allowed me to have the greatest empathy for you and your plight whereas, I may have never had the opportunity, being a white American woman. I appreciate the honesty and openness. We all need to know the good and the bad, to be able to have true unity in this country, although it seems impossible.

Great Book

So thoughtful, well-written and insightful. I’ve read his prior books and eagerly awaited this. I wasn’t disappointed.

Brilliant

It is a beautiful, insightful and moving memoir. At the same time, as a refugee myself, I wonder if it is a story fully understood only by us.

Wonderful

Nguyen presents his life story as a blend of politics, personal accounts, theoretical and intellectual interpretations, and history. Above all, I was struck by his compassion for all the forgotten people--the collateral damage of militarism, colonialism, capitalism, racism--such as his mother whose refugee experience haunts this amazing memoir.

Authentic, Heartbreaking

Read it! You will finally understand what refugees go through. The US needs an asylum policy now!

If you don't like coddled, cry-babies, then avoid

I did two tours in Vietnam living with the Vietnamese 24/7. I went to Vietnamese language school, which allowed me to get really familiar with the people, and they became like family. I have made five trips back between 2016-19, and they all treat Americans extremely well. I stayed long enough to make many Vietnamese friends all over their country.

This book was written by the most self absorbed, ungrateful person I have ever had the displeasure of listening to. His 4.8 rating must be because it is required listening by the anti-American left. He even discredits his own brother for being smarter and graduating from Yale. He attacks the support families that took his family in when they came to America. His negativity never stopped. To the victor belongs the spoils has always been the case since time began, and then things change. To still be angry about how some people were treated a century ago instead of focusing on how far we have come is a waste of time. Should we still be angry with the Romans, Muslims, British, etc., from ages ago? How far back it too long?

I returned this book after forcing my way through the first half, which was a total waste of the time I have left in my life. Avoid this book unless you also hate America like this author does.