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A National Bestseller A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice An Amazon Best Book of the Year So Far (#5) One of Newsday’s “10 Books Not to Miss in April” A Publishers Weekly Debut Fiction Pick A Library Journal Best Debut of Spring One of Kirkus Reviews' "10 Novels to Lose Yourself In" and a Must-Read Pick for Spring A Flavorwire Must-Read Book for Apirl Shortlisted for the 2015 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a South Vietnamese general is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his captain, drawing up a list of those who will be on the last flights out of the country. The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles, unaware that the captain is observing and reporting on the group to the Viet Cong. Exploring a life between two worlds, The Sympathizer examines the legacy of the Vietnam War.
- Sales Rank: #176415 in Books
- Published on: 2015-10-07
- Format: Large Print
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.40" h x 5.60" w x 8.60" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 641 pages
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of April 2015: Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer brilliantly draws you in with the opening line: “I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces.” It’s thrilling, rhythmic, and astonishing, as is the rest of Nguyen’s enthralling portrayal of the Vietnam War. The narrator is an undercover communist agent posing as a captain in the Southern Vietnamese Army. Set during the fall of Saigon and the years after in America, the captain spies on the general and the men he escaped with, sharing his information with his communist blood brothers in coded letters. But when his allegiance is called into question, he must act in a way that will haunt him forever. Political, historical, romantic and comic, The Sympathizer is a rich and hugely gratifying story that captures the complexity of the war and what it means to be of two minds. --Al Woodworth
Review
Praise for The Sympathizer:
Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Winner of the 2016 Edgar Award for Best First Novel
Winner of the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
Winner of the 2015 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Winner of the 2015-2016 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature (Adult Fiction)
Winner of the 2016 California Book Award for First Fiction
Finalist for the 2016 PEN/Faulkner Award
Finalist for the 2016 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction
Finalist for the 2016 Medici Book Club Prize
Finalist for the 2015 Los Angeles Times Book Prize (Mystery/Thriller)
Finalist for the 2016 ABA Indies Choice/E.B. White Read-Aloud Award (Book of the Year, Adult Fiction)
Named a Best Book of the Year on more than twenty lists, including the New York Times Book Review, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post
“A layered immigrant tale told in the wry, confessional voice of a ‘man of two minds’—and two countries, Vietnam and the United States.”—Pulitzer Prize Citation
“[A] remarkable debut novel . . . [Nguyen] brings a distinctive perspective to the war and its aftermath. His book fills a void in the literature, giving voice to the previously voiceless . . . The nameless protagonist-narrator, a memorable character despite his anonymity, is an Americanized Vietnamese with a divided heart and mind. Nguyen’s skill in portraying this sort of ambivalent personality compares favorably with masters like Conrad, Greene, and le Carr�. . . . Both thriller and social satire. . . . In its final chapters, The Sympathizer becomes an absurdist tour de force that might have been written by a Kafka or Genet.”—Philip Caputo, New York Times Book Review (cover review)
“This is more than a fresh perspective on a familiar subject. [The Sympathizer] is intelligent, relentlessly paced and savagely funny . . . The voice of the double-agent narrator, caustic yet disarmingly honest, etches itself on the memory.”—Wall Street Journal (WSJ’s Best Books of 2015)
“Extraordinary . . . Surely a new classic of war fiction. . . . [Nguyen] has wrapped a cerebral thriller around a desperate expat story that confronts the existential dilemmas of our age. . . . Laced with insight on the ways nonwhite people are rendered invisible in the propaganda that passes for our pop culture. . . . I haven’t read anything since Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four that illustrates so palpably how a patient tyrant, unmoored from all humane constraint, can reduce a man’s mind to liquid.”—Washington Post
“The great achievement of The Sympathizer is that it gives the Vietnamese a voice and demands that we pay attention. Until now, it’s been largely a one-sided conversation—or at least that’s how it seems in American popular culture . . . We’ve never had a story quite like this one before. . . . [Nguyen] has a great deal to say and a knowing, playful, deeply intelligent voice . . . There are so many passages to admire. Mr. Nguyen is a master of the telling ironic phrase and the biting detail, and the book pulses with Catch-22-style absurdities.”—New York Times
“Beautifully written and meaty . . . really compelling. I had that kid-like feeling of being inside the book.”—Claire Messud, Boston Globe
“This debut is a page-turner (read: everybody will finish) that makes you reconsider the Vietnam War (read: everyone will have an opinion) . . . Nguyen’s darkly comic novel offers a point of view about American culture that we’ve rarely seen.”—Oprah.com (Oprah’s Book Club Suggestions)
“The novel’s best parts are painful, hilarious exposures of white tone-deafness . . . [the] satire is delicious.”—New Yorker
“The Sympathizer reads as part literary historical fiction, part espionage thriller and part satire. American perceptions of Asians serve as some of the book’s most deliciously tart commentary . . . Nguyen knows of what he writes.”—Los Angeles Times
“Sparkling and audacious . . . Unique and startling . . . Nguyen’s prose is often like a feverish, frenzied dream, a profuse and lively stream of images sparking off the page. . . . Nguyen can be wickedly funny. . . . [His] narrator has an incisive take on Asian-American history and what it means to be a nonwhite American. . . . this remarkable, rollicking read by a Vietnamese immigrant heralds an exciting new voice in American literature.”—Seattle Times
“Stunned, amazed, impressed. [The Sympathizer is] so skillfully and brilliantly executed that I cannot believe this is a first novel. (I should add jealous to my emotions.) Upends our notions of the Vietnam novel.”—Chicago Tribune
“A very special, important, brilliant novel . . . Amazing . . . I don’t say brilliant about a lot of books, but this is a brilliant book . . . A fabulous book . . . that everyone should read.”—Nancy Pearl, KUOW.org
“Dazzling . . . I’ve read scads of Vietnam War books, but The Sympathizer has an exciting quality I haven’t encountered . . . A fascinating exploration of personal identity, cultural identity, and what it means to sympathize with two sides at once.”—John Powers, Fresh Air, NPR (Books I Wish I’d Reviewed)
“Powerful and evocative . . . Gripping.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“Welcome a unique new voice to the literary chorus. . . . [The Sympathizer] is, among other things, a character-driven thriller, a political satire, and a biting historical account of colonization and revolution. It dazzles on all fronts.”—Cleveland Plain Dealer
“[Nguyen’s] books perform an optic tilt about Vietnam and what America did there as profound as Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Toni Morrison’s Beloved were to the legacy of racism and slavery.”—John Freeman, Literary Hub
“For those who have been waiting for the great Vietnamese American Vietnam War novel, this is it. More to the point: This is a great American Vietnam War novel. . . . It is the last word (I hope) on the horrors of the Vietnamese re-education camps that our allies were sentenced to when we left them swinging in the wind.”—Vietnam Veterans of America
“Magisterial. A disturbing, fascinating and darkly comic take on the fall of Saigon and its aftermath, and a powerful examination of guilt and betrayal. The Sympathizer is destined to become a classic and redefine the way we think about the Vietnam War and what it means to win and to lose.”—T.C. Boyle
“Trapped in endless civil war, ‘the man who has two minds’ tortures and is tortured as he tries to meld the halves of his country and of himself. Viet Thanh Nguyen accomplishes this integration in a magnificent feat of storytelling. The Sympathizer is a novel of literary, historical, and political importance.”—Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Fifth Book of Peace
“It is a strong, strange and liberating joy to read this book, feeling with each page that a broken world is being knitted back together, once again whole and complete. As far as I am concerned, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer—both a great American novel and a great Vietnamese novel—will close the shelf on the literature of the Vietnam War.”—Bob Shacochis, author of The Woman Who Lost Her Soul
“Read this novel with care; it is easy to read, wry, ironic, wise, and captivating, but it could change not only your outlook on the Vietnam War, but your outlook on what you believe about politics and ideology in general. It does what the best of literature does, expands your consciousness beyond the limitations of your body and individual circumstances.”—Karl Marlantes, author of Matterhorn and What It Is Like to Go to War
“Not only does Viet Thanh Nguyen bring a rare and authentic voice to the body of American literature generated by the Vietnam War, he has created a book that transcends history and politics and nationality and speaks to the enduring theme of literature: the universal quest for self, for identity. The Sympathizer is a stellar debut by a writer of depth and skill.”—Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
“The Sympathizer is a remarkable and brilliant book. By turns harrowing, and cut through by shards of unexpected and telling humor, this novel gives us the conflict in Vietnam, and its aftermath, in a way that is deeply truthful, and vitally important.”—Vincent Lam, author of Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures and The Headmaster’s Wager
“I think I'd have to go all the way back to Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert to find the last narrative voice that so completely conked me over the head and took me prisoner. Nguyen and his unnamed protagonist certainly have made a name for themselves with one of the smartest, darkest, funniest books you'll read this year.”—David Abrams, author of Fobbit
“Audaciously and vividly imagined. A compelling read.”—Andrew X. Pham, author of Catfish and Mandala
“Nguyen’s cross-grained protagonist exposes the hidden costs in both countries of America’s tragic Asian misadventure. Nguyen’s probing literary art illuminates how Americans failed in their political and military attempt to remake Vietnam—but then succeeded spectacularly in shrouding their failure in Hollywood distortions. Compelling—and profoundly unsettling.”—Booklist (starred review)
“A closely written novel of after-the-war Vietnam, when all that was solid melted into air. As Graham Greene and Robert Stone have taught us, on the streets of Saigon, nothing is as it seems. . . . Think Alan Furst meets Elmore Leonard, and you’ll capture Nguyen at his most surreal . . . Both chilling and funny, and a worthy addition to the library of first-rate novels about the Vietnam War.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“[An] astonishing first novel . . . Nguyen’s novel enlivens debate about history and human nature, and his narrator has a poignant often mindful voice.”—Publishers Weekly (starred, boxed review)
“Breathtakingly cynical, the novel has its hilarious moments . . . Ultimately a meditation on war, political movements, America's imperialist role, the CIA, torture, loyalty, and one's personal identity, this is a powerful, thought-provoking work. It's hard to believe this effort . . . is a debut. This is right up there with Denis Johnson's Tree of Smoke."—Library Journal (starred review)
“I cannot remember the last time I read a novel whose protagonist I liked so much. Smart, funny, and self-critical, with a keen sense of when to let a story speak for itself (and when to gloss it with commentary). He’s someone I would like to have a beer with, despite the fact that his life’s work is the betrayal of his friends. . . . [Nguyen] proves a gifted and bold satirist.”—Barnes & Noble Review
“Riveting . . . The Sympathizer is not only a masterly espionage novel, but also a seminal work of 21st century American fiction. Giving voice to the Vietnamese experience in the United States, Nguyen offers profound insights into the legacy of war and the politically and racially charged atmosphere of the 1970s.”—BookReporter
“[A] shimmering debut novel . . . Leaping with lyrical verve, each page turns to a unique and hauntingly familiar voice that refuses to let us forget what people are capable of doing to each other.”—Asian American Writers’ Workshop
“Arresting . . . One of the best pieces of fiction about the Vietnam war—and by a Vietnamese. . . . Stunning . . . Could it be that Nguyen has captured the shape of the devolution of war itself, from grand ambition to human ruin? . . . One of the finest novels of the Vietnam War published in recent years.”—The Daily Beast
“[An] intriguing confessional . . . [a] tour de force . . . So taken was I by the first quarter of the book that I believed myself to be reading an actual confession . . . The character himself . . . and the quality of the narration seized me, leaving me almost breathless in my pursuit of an ending.”—Sewanee Review
“Tremendously funny, with a demanding verbal texture . . . Both tender and a bit of a romp, the book reminded me of how big books can be.”—Guardian (Best Books of 2015)
“Astounding . . . [The unnamed narrator] will be compared to the morally exhausted spies, intelligence officers and double agents of Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, and John le Carr�.”—Toronto Star
About the Author
Viet Thanh Nguyen was born in Vietnam and raised in America. He is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the academic books Race and Resistance and Nothing Ever Dies. He is a cultural critic-at-large for the Los Angeles Times and teaches English and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. He lives in Los Angeles.
Most helpful customer reviews
171 of 185 people found the following review helpful.
A powerful tragic novel - 4+
By Blue in Washington
"The Sympathizer" was published exactly 40 years after the fall of Saigon to Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces and the effective end of the 10-year old conflict. The impact of that war is still felt, to some degree, in the U.S. On the other hand, when Americans visit Vietnam (northern or southern regions), they only rarely hear any mention of the war and they see a country dramatically transformed physically, in many ways. While the form of national government there is still officially communist, there is abundant proof that the economy is solidly capitalist. As long as 15 years ago, I asked a ranking member of an official delegation visiting Washington about this and his comment was that while the North had won the "civil war", the South had won the soul of the whole country--meaning that the Vietnamese have always been independent-minded, small land holders and capitalists at heart throughout a history of at least 2000 years.
I mention all of the above to point out the irony that is inherent in this novel. "The Sympathizer" is blind to the present as it chronicles the stories of several members of the South Vietnamese forces at the very end of the war (1975) into the early 1980s. The central character among them is the right hand man of a powerful general--the acting head of the national police in the waning days of the Saigon government--whose personal history puts him at odds with all daily reality. He was born a Northerner--therefore existentially suspect by all Southerners; he is half-French-therefore someone to be disdained by the instinctively atavistic and/or racist Vietnamese; he is a mole for the Viet Cong in the midst of the Saigon power structure; he is U.S. educated--forcing him to hold some admiration for the country he is working against and making him (mostly against his will) more self-critical of his own society and culture; he is an exile in the U.S. after the fall of Saigon--a place he hates and admires at the same time. Ultimately, he becomes the prototype of a man without a country and the archtypical cynic. All that happens in this striking novel about the tragedy of war and its aftermath revolves around this brilliantly conceived character.
As engrossing as this book was for me, I can't say that it was easy to read at all times. The driving themes of loss, betrayal, lack of compassion, and paucity of hope for the future are hard for the reader to deal with in a long novel. This was even more difficult for me as i have known and loved the country first hand in some of its worst days of trouble and find it difficult to see much merit in the U.S. intervention and prolongation of what was essentially a civil war. I wonder if author Viet Thanh Nguyen has another book in mind that would take his protagonist in "The Sympathizer" into the present.
In any event, this is a fascinating and worthwhile story even without any knowledge of the time setting. Highly recommended.
121 of 131 people found the following review helpful.
A Classic Dark Comedy about War
By The Pie Dude
The narrator of "The Sympathizer," by Viet Thanh Nguyen is the son of a Vietnamese woman and a French priest. Sent as a young man to Occidental College in Los Angeles, he is also an expert in American Studies and speaks flawless English. After returning to Vietnam, he becomes a captain in the army serving as aide de camp to a General. Secretly he is a spy for the communist revolution. As he tells his story, from narrowly escaping Saigon with the General in 1975 to life as a refugee in Los Angeles to working as a consultant to "The Auteur" on a film about Vietnam shot in the Philippines and finally to Thailand, we discover he is actually writing his "confession" to a commandant in a prison camp back in Vietnam.
The captain's otherness allows him to see Vietnam and America with a clarity that enlightens us as readers. While much of his story is devoted to how badly Americans understood the Vietnamese people, he also skewers partisans on both sides of the divide within his home country. His encounters with military, political and academic experts of all sorts reveal the ideological blinders that shaped their beliefs and horrific violence of the war. In the end, though, the story is about his struggle to come to terms with his own participation in that violence. What he did and did not do weigh heavily on his conscience.
Though his story is a serious one, Nguyen writes with a comic touch that belies the tragedy all around. "The Sympathizer" deserves comparisons with "Catch 22" as a classic dark comedy about war.
205 of 228 people found the following review helpful.
Engrossing, But Unconvincing
By Reader from Washington, DC
"The Sympathizer" is a brilliant novel, but it fell flat for me. Its hero -- or anti-hero -- isn't quite convincing in his role(s).
The novel is presented as the memoir of a young officer in the South Vietnamese army and secret police during the fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese Communist army. He is a traitor, a secret Communist operative, who routinely sends all of the confidential information he receives to his boyhood buddy, a Communist intelligence officer also hidden within the South Vietnamese army.
In addition to his emotional confusion -- posing as an anti-communist while actually helping the Communists -- the anti-hero is also biracial -- his father was a French Roman Catholic priest who seduced his teenage Vietnamese mother. He has grown up being insulted by many Vietnamese as a "bastard."
Allegedly, his dual ethnic identity makes him a better spy -- treated with suspicion by all, he is the last to be suspected of any crimes -- it's just assumed that a 'bastard' will be grateful for his employment and loyal. His friendly, non-judgmental manner and willingness to listen have made him the "sympathizer."
The book is well-written, with vivid evocations of the weather, culture, people and atmosphere of wartime Saigon, and the Vietnamese refugee groups in America and Asia after the war. This is the material of a gripping psychological thriller, but the author chose to write the book as a black comedy.
The problem with the book is that even with the greater latitude given by the black comedy genre, the protagonist does not come across as a real Communist operative or as a 1970's Vietnamese. To remain a "sleeper agent" for years requires profound ideological convictions and commitment, but the novel's protagonist is very cynical about everything and dotes on the West's alcohol, sex and material comforts.
He seems seldom or never to have read any Communist texts -- the first quotations that appear in his head in most situations are from Western or Vietnamese pop songs. The tone of the memoirs is cool, remote, post-modern -- the author doesn't convey the intensity of the Communists of that era, who were very heavily indoctrinated and passionate.
I remember the Vietnam War vividly, and the novel is not written in a 1970's voice. There's a lot of disguised sociological commentary on problems of race, gender, etc., that are made from a viewpoint not common in that era, though very common now.
The author is a Gen X Vietnamese-American academic, who came to the U.S. as a child with his parents. It's clear that he's done tons of research on the Vietnam War and has listened diligently to many stories from Vietnamese who lived through it. His anti-hero feels like a coolly detached Gen X or Millenial suddenly dropped back about 40 years in time.
The novel will be of interest to Vietnam War history buffs, military readers of all types, and people interested in the history of Vietnam. I think it would have worked better as a "return to former homeland by child of exiles" type novel, where the author's irony and distance from his subject would have meshed better with the black comedy format.
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