Nguyen’s narrative strikes a very elusive balance: vast in scale and ambition, while luscious and inviting — enchanting, really — in its intimacy ... Nguyen has created a revolving triptych of characters who, despite their closeness, or maybe even as a result of it, remain a paradox to one another ... The specter of that water looms heavy as time passes, but as Nguyen guides us through the decades into the 2000s he never shows his hand; he lets readers wind their own internal clocks. The result is both inviting and jolting. Nguyen’s characters exist within New Orleans’s myths — of mystery, splendor, pleasure — until they become inextricable from those narratives themselves ... The narrative structure changes subtly as the family’s years in New Orleans accumulate, but still the emotional tethers remain palpable. Nguyen is especially gifted at crafting a sense of longing, and the arc of Ben’s queer story line is sure-footed and poignant ... It’s a rare novel that conveys the vertigo of a journey without demystifying its individual turns, but Nguyen is an able captain, and the path he charts for us is illuminating. The tide ebbs and flows, but it does eventually, inevitably, return.

... haunting ... poignantly explores all the ways in which Vietnamese refugees are affected by country and water — in sum, by dislocation ... gracefully manages to be both panoramic and specific, allegorical and literal ... Nguyen's narrative language, as consistent with his fluid universe, is an organic blend of English and Vietnamese...slipping into dialogues, recorded messages, and descriptions. This hybrid language highlights his characters' complex essence, showing that their experiences are not subjugated by one dominant mode of expression but formed by layered syntaxes. It also vividly illustrates the borderless, convergent quality of country/water.

... moving ... In Nguyen's deft writing, the truth is never so simple as one version of a story ... survival is not a stage that is ever guaranteed, Nguyen reminds the reader. Things We Lost to the Water opens and ends on scenes of hurricanes that the family experiences in their years in New Orleans, an apt symbol for the tumult of their lives as refugees and the cyclical nature of violence and memory.

While the story arc might sound familiar—other-side-of-the-world refugees who endure challenging lives in the U.S.—Nguyen’s gentle precision nevertheless produces an extraordinary debut with undeniable resonance ... Once upon a time, Hương was a village wife to teacher Công, mother to young Tuấn. Suddenly, all three are running for their lives, but only Hương and Tuấn board the boat, embarking on a path of everlasting separation ... Nearly three decades later, Hurricane Katrina will once again confront the trio with Things We Lost to the Water and the question of what can and should be salvaged from the devastation.

Eric Nguyen’s masterful debut novel Things We Lost to the Water is a deeply engaging, heart-rending look at a family of Vietnamese refugees struggling to survive and how the choices they make as individuals have ripple effects on each other ... Flowing throughout Nguyen’s novel is the leitmotif of water, starting with the escape from Vietnam. A murky bayou backs up to the family’s apartment. A public swimming pool is the site of Ben’s sexual awakening. A hurricane tests the family’s survival skills. In Nguyen’s world, water is a constant. Because of its very nature, though, water is changeable. It swells, and it recedes. It’s murky, and it’s clear. Family has similar qualities. People come and go. Hopes blossom and fade. Bonds are tested by physical and emotional distance. But family is a constant. It may not resemble the one we hoped for, but there it always is, reminding us where we came from.

Nguyen’s captivating debut spans three decades to chronicle the lives of a Vietnamese refugee family ... As the characters spin away from each other, Nguyen keeps a keen eye on their struggles and triumphs, crafting an expansive portrayal of New Orleans’s Vietnamese community under the ever-present threat of flooding, and the novel builds to a haunting conclusion during Hurricane Katrina. Readers will find this gripping and illuminating.

... the novel moves fluidly among each of the family members’ perspectives ... Debut author Nguyen movingly portrays the way adopted homes can become as cherished and familiar as ancestral ones [...] but also the truth that new loves can never quite heal old wounds ... An engrossing, prismatic portrait of first- and second-generation Vietnamese American life.