Riveting ... Mai brings her poetic touch to one of the war’s forgotten legacies: thousands of left-behind Amerasian children, now middle-aged, who have struggled to be accepted in their communities ... An exquisite novel ... Sparked by a BBC story chronicling an American vet’s search for his Amerasian child, Dust Child deepens and complicates such quests ... [A] beautifully rendered portrait ... It is one of the many pleasures of Dust Child that despite its portrayal of suffering and difficulty, the novel is also infused with joy. Whether writing of Phong’s courtship of the singer Bình, and their eventual marriage, or Kim’s love of poetry, or vibrant street scenes from the cities, Nguyễn beautifully summons the daily lives of her characters ... In telling their stories over a lifetime, she gives each of the characters opportunities to inhabit their full humanity, and chances to learn and change.
A moving story from an often-overlooked perspective ... Dust Child isn’t the most complicated book out there. Astute readers will figure out the novel’s linchpins well before the commonalities between the three stories are officially revealed ... The dialogue can also feel a little stiff at times ... Still, the well-researched Dust Child is a worthy and affecting story that is long overdue.
It's a heavy topic. But author Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai works wonders taking readers deep inside this undercovered part of the war's history ... A wonderful exercise in point-of-view storytelling. It follows three main characters, alternating between two periods in Vietnam ... Quế Mai's ability to plunge the reader into the perspective of a different character with each new chapter transforms Dust Child into a page-turner. The connections between the story's main players are slowly revealed, building to a powerful conclusion ... Quế Mai has given these characters — and the real people they represent — a bold voice. It's well worth listening to.
At certain junctures, the plot creaks and shudders as it turns. But Quế Mai provides readers with wonderful linguistic play, and through her deft and illuminating descriptions of the intimate details of her characters’ personal lives and difficult choices, we end up caring deeply for them and hoping for their well-being.
Quế Mai adeptly balances these contemporary narratives with Phong’s early experiences and the wartime story of sisters Trang and Quynh ... here are no clear heroes or villains here as characters’ actions and choices are shaped by their circumstances and the war’s legacy.
Stirring if sometimes melodramatic ... Nguyễn writes with an intimate, detailed understanding of Vietnamese women’s treatment during the war and the struggles of Amerasians seeking their parents in the present. The story’s impact is blunted somewhat by her efforts to wrap the story up tidily and by stilted dialogue ... But for a story spawned from academic research, it has the grace of a page-turner and sheds light on a neglected subject.
By the end, the plots converge and resolve in a satisfying if somewhat predictable outcome. Though the structure feels a bit forced, Nguyễn is at her best when the characters directly address their need for absolution and acceptance, which Nguyễn stages in dramatic scenes and with a cinematic clarity. Despite the bumps, there’s much to admire.
