PositiveInternational ExaminerA narrator this good can take a novel anywhere ... Shifting from spy thriller to gangster flick, and from Southern California to Paris, makes sense for a sequel, but these choices are justified by the history of the Vietnamese diaspora. The crime story is less satisfying—more post-Tarantino indie-film pastiche than the gangster we are still all looking for—but the change in setting is the key to the book ... don’t let the displays of erudition intimidate you, because its most profound questions, about forgiveness and power and commitment, are ones that every reader already knows intimately ... What worked so well in The Sympathizer still works in The Committed because of their picaresque spirit—they feel like endlessly extendable collections of set pieces—but there are limits. By placing him in a satire of the priapic arrogance of 1980s French intellectuals, for example, The Committed exposes the narrator’s own vacuous sexism, which can’t be laughed off. Nguyen recognizes this, but a proper reckoning for his character is not really possible ... Worse, this leads you to realize that back with Ellison in the novel’s family tree are a stack of those tediously clever white-boy novels you stopped reading after finishing your English major, and never missed ... Nonetheless...The Committed arrives at a conclusion that’s narratively original, intellectually satisfying, and emotionally powerful.
