A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, a History, a Memorial

In the early 1970s, four-year-old Viet Thanh Nguyen and his family fled Ban Mê Thuột as the Vietnam War’s final battles raged, only to tear apart in Saigon and leave him alone in suburban San José, California—where the sunny streets hid the trauma of exile. On a fateful Christmas Eve when he was nine, Nguyen watched cartoons as the crack of gunfire echoed through the aisles of his parents’ grocery store, the SàiGòn Mới, searing a lesson in the fragility of home and the urgency of Immigration Rights. As a teenager, he wrestled with the moral fog stirred by films like Apocalypse Now, where Political Justice clashed with personal memory under the weight of colonial legacies. Later, learning of an adopted sister left behind in Vietnam, he journeyed back to trace the footprints of displacement and rediscover the power of Cultural Understanding. With trademark lyricism and unflinching honesty, A Man of Two Faces rewinds Nguyen’s life to reveal how forgetting can be as vital as remembering, and how one refugee’s story can reshape our shared ideas of identity, memory, and justice. Tap the Save to List button to bookmark this title, or tap the External Link button to view purchase and rental options.