Behind the Red Mist: Short Fiction by Ho Anh Thai (Voices from Vietnam) [Paperback]

Ho Anh Thai (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1998 | Series: Voices from Vietnam (Book 2)

Behind the Red Mist gives us for the first time in English a wide range of stories from the most important writer of the post-war generation in Vietnam. The characters range from a party official who turns into a goat while watching porno movies, to an Indian who carries his mother's bones in his knapsack, to a war widow trying desperately to piece together her life through the fragments of debris she collects from her back yard. The title novella "Behind the Red Mist" is a Vietnamese "Back To the Future", a social satire in which a young man in the Hanoi of the eighties receives an electric shock and is transported back to his same apartment block in 1967 wartime Vietnam during the American bombing. He not only witnesses the war with the eyes of someone who knows its outcome, but participates in his parents' courtship and discovers some truths about the generation held up to his own as a role model.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Considered the most important writer of Vietnam's postwar generation, Ho Anh Thai brings an intimate knowledge of the Vietnam War into perspective with a style that is at once whimsical and sharp-sighted. In this first collection to be published in English, we meet characters such as the man who carries his mother's bones in his knapsack in "The Indian." Wherever he goes, the disapproving spirit of his mother seems to watch his actions, and when he extracts the bones from a pond that a lover has thrown them into, his guilt is multiplied upon finding that his mother's finger bones can't be found. In the story "Behind the Red Mist," a young man is magically transported into his own past during the war bombings. He meets his parents before they married and discovers that their generation is actually different from the way in which it had been portrayed to him as a child. Ananda, from "The Man Who Stood on One Leg," swears to pose on one leg, like the god Shiva dancing, until the factory director gives him 1 million rupees to build a temple. The director refuses, but when Ananda dies, the metaphoric temple that was Ananda becomes an emptiness in the town that the director feels compelled to fill. --Susan Swartwout

From Kirkus Reviews

Behind The Red Mist ($13.95 paperback original; Sept.; 245 pp.; 1-880684-54-3): A fine collection of ten stories, all published in the last two decades, by a talented writer who explores postwar life in his native Vietnam with a commanding mixture of brutal realism and symbolist fantasy. Thai's primary subject is the contrast between naive patriotism and the embittered realism of later generations scarred by their country's recent history of prolonged warfare. ``The Chase,'' ``Leaving the Valley,'' and the complex title novella all vigorously explore this theme, and are enriched by their juxtaposition with such unusual companion pieces as a wry homage to E.M. Forster (``The Indian'') and a mischievous satire on bureaucratic greed (``The Goat Meat Special''). A first-rate English-language debut. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 230 pages
• Publisher: Curbstone Books; 1st edition (September 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1880684543
• ISBN-13: 978-1880684542
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #600,974 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a good read - great for a book club, December 2, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Behind the Red Mist: Short Fiction by Ho Anh Thai (Voices from Vietnam) (Paperback)

The first story was good. The next one was better. I thought it was impossible, but each successive story is better than the prior one. An enjoyable read. A book that you'll want to share and discuss with others.

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect condition, September 22, 2010

By 

J. Hansen - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Behind the Red Mist: Short Fiction by Ho Anh Thai (Voices from Vietnam) (Paperback)

The book was in really good condition; it had a used sticker on the cover, but other than that, it's perfect.

5.0 out of 5 stars imaginative, June 15, 2007

By 

Christian Liu (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Behind the Red Mist: Short Fiction by Ho Anh Thai (Voices from Vietnam) (Paperback)

This collection comprises 9 short stories and 1 novella. All are imaginative and most examine the struggles of the postwar generation in Vietnam. There is a Kafkaesque quality to some of the stories and the novella is especially interesting. Worth a read.