Customer Reviews

The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars

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Sometimes a reader is privileged enough to read a book in which the words, sentences, and stories just wash over and envelop you, like a gentle beach wave. This is such a book. I enjoyed Pham's earlier "Catfish" so much that I awaited this latest book of family stories with great anticipation; and I was rewarded. Whether I read this on the subway, a bench, or at home, I was immediately transported to Vietnam, where Pham skillfully describes the villages and cities, the triumphs, pains, tastes, loves, corruptions, kindnesses, terrors and fears of his father's early life (or perhaps lives.) Along the way, I learned more about Vietnamese history and village life than I ever knew before. Pham orders the chapters so that the reader moves back and forth between the decades of his father's childhood and adulthood, all the while progressing to the point we all expect, the fall of Saigon to the VC.

As his grandmother taught, the eaves of heaven dealt good and bad in cycles. Devastating floods brought death but fertile harvests, childbirths brought the risks of a mother's death, and lovely days brought future storms. The lyrical sentences allow you to nearly taste the peach melba ice cream eaten during a courtship, but also let you live the terror of re-education and being pinned down by VC troops in a life or death firefight. The pure childhood enjoyment of eating treats and having cricket fights is a pleasure to read. But one will never again care for the fabled glory of the French Foreign Legion after finishing this book. I finished the final chapter just as NBC began to telecast the Miss Universe pageant from a colorful and cosmopolitan Ho Chi Minh City and Nha Trang, and all I could do is ponder the tribulations of this memoir and the amnesia of the telecast. Luckily this book captures a forgotten past with all the aspects that the eaves leave in shadows.

The Eaves of Heaven is about Thong Pham's life. His son, Andrew Pham, writes in the first person as if it were his father telling his story. In the introduction Andrew writes "I have lent his [Thong Pham's] life stories my words...The perspectives and sentiments within are his." Hence this book is Thing Pham's memoir, distilled as stories he told his son, and further distilled as Andrew Pham recounts them again.

Thong Pham witnessed the French occupation of Vietnam, the Japanese occupation during World War II and the American war after World War II ended. His story is one of migration that those displaced by war experience. First he moved from his ancestral land in the Red River Delta (North Vietnam) to Hanoi, and later to Saigon. Recounted are also times when work demands pulled him away from his home and family.

Each chapter recounts an event that as a collection bring out the idyllic life of a Vietnamese child born into aristocracy, the horrors of armed conflict, the helplessness of forced migration, the plight of serving in the armed forces, and the hardships of being captured by the enemy. With these backdrops, the narrative interweaves human actions (both base and noble) that give this book its soul. As a collection of family stories, this book is a treasure trove for the Pham family.

Pham's attention to detail effectively transports the reader "on location" so one can truly feel the rain, see the sunrise and appreciate the events are they unfold. The chapters are not in chronological order, and I found myself constantly referring to prior chapters and prior events to get a better understanding of which events had transpired, and which ones were to come. When I re-read the book, I'll read the chapters so the events narrated are in chronological order.

For those not familiar with Vietnamese history, Pham provides adequate background to help follow the political events that transpire in Thong's life. The Eaves of Heaven is more about human feelings and emotion than about the political turmoil that serves as its backdrop. One realizes that armed conflict and forced migration bring out the best and worst in all of us.

Armchair Interviews agrees.

From 1940 to1976, Viet Nam was in a constant state of war that impacted the people. Andrew X. Pham provides the biography of his father Thong Van Pham, who lived through the three plus decades of war starting with the Japanese invasion of the French occupied region during WW II through the fight for independent from the French and finally the war over the South against the United States. As a child Thong lived an upper crust life being born to a wealthy family. Over the years of war, famine and abuse, the family fortune vanished and consequently the life style.

This is a fascinating biography that also serves as a deep look at the history of Viet Nam. The author rotates his father's life with recent events that brings a harrowing feel as the reader gains a sense of the outcome resulting from the years of turbulence. Well written, readers will marvel at Mr. Pham's capture of the impact of power struggles on everyday people.

Harriet Klausner

I had the book in my sight for days and returned it to the library then I borrowed it and returned it, again and again, until one day I had enough courage to sit down and read it and finished it in 1 weekend. I could have read it sooner and once committed to it I could have finished the book in shorter time but there were lots of things, mostly fear, kept me from completing the task. Most of the time when the book led me to the painful memories of the Viet Nam war during which time I was born and growing up in Saigon, I had to put the book down and walked away for a while until I've gathered enough strenght to pick it up and continue.

Just like the author, I had similar childhood and upbringing, my parents are northerners of the middle class farmer clan who escaped the communist in 1954 to come to the south, my father was a member of the Nationalist Movement, the idealistic young intellectuals group which was decimated by Viet Minh (Ho Chi Minh) group.

Unlike his father, my father never told us what he has been through before 1954, his life during the French and Japanese occupation was never revealed to his children and I am thankful for Pham for opening the window of his soul to show me what I have almost missed the chance to know.

There were so many dark stories of the past, in North Viet Nam, that my father never told us, having read the book I came to realize the reason why my father never wanted to talk about them. The deadly struggles between the Nationalists and the Communists, the harrowing 2 million-death famine caused by the Japanese, the long run from Nam Dinh to Hanoi that he and my mother made across miles of rice fields and villages with my 3 older brothers and luggage in their arms and backs (I was not born until the family settled in the South), the French seized him when the family arrived in Hanoi and put him in the infamous Hoa Lo prison for a while. All these experiences I hear it second hand from relatives long after he passed away.

The book had shined a light on the painful path that the author's father and my father traveled through, for which I appreciated a great deal and forever grateful.

Had the author never committed to writing, Pham certainly will become a great painter with his gift of vision we found in the book.

This is an excellent family memoir of Vietnam in the 20th century. I thought I understood the background to the Vietnam War, but reading this book I realised how little I knew. The author writes beautifully, and tells the history of his father's country through the stories of various family members and their friends. He avoids any particular political agenda but this is a country which has suffered a great deal of injustice and cruelty and the reader will no doubt draw his or her own conclusions. Very highly recommended.

This was a poignant tribute to the author's father who lived through French, Japanese and American wars of occupation in Vietnam. Written in simple language with powerful imagery, it will leave you dreaming of things that were and might have been, while finally realizing the WHY of Vietnam and how, under the circumstances, things couldn't have happened differently. I will read it again.
P.S. It's not a downer.

I sought out THE EAVES OF HEAVEN after reading Andrew X. Pham's story of his bicycle trip in Vietnam, CATFISH AND MANDALA. Now I am reading Mr. Pham's translation of I DREAMED OF PEACE, to "see" how it is to be on the other side of a war.

My wife and I were active protesters of the Vietnam war and participated in the 1968 anti-war march in Washington. In 2008, we worked hard here in Nevada to help elect President Obama so he could end the war in Iraq. We are anti-war people. Why? After reading the above books, I think it is because of this:

My wife was born in 1941 in Stuttgart, Germany, a town that was 75% destroyed by Allied bombs. She immigrated to the U.S as a maid in Scarsdale, NY in 1965. We married in 1967. She never talks about the war in Germany, even though we have visited Germany a number of times. However, to this day, when she hears sirens she tightens up and is reminded of air raid shelters and bombs.

Andrew X.Pham is a wonderful writer and translator of the horrors, humanity and inhumanity of war. He has helped to fill in the "untold stories" my wife never talks about and I NEVER bring up.

`The Eves of Heaven` is an "auto-biography" by Thong Van Pham. In fact it is written by his son Andrew, but he takes on the first person voice of his father Thong, similar to the technique used by Dave Eggers in `What Is the What?`. It is difficult to know how accurate it is, or what degree of artistic license is involved, but in a way it doesn't matter because as creative non-fiction it reads like a novel.

Not only is the story highly engrossing, thrilling and fascinating, but it is humane. Thong never seems to loose his sense of dignity and respect for life despite the horrors of violence, drugs and prostitution that stalk him. The lush prose is deliciously sensuous in one chapter, then shifts to scenes of deprivation the next, like a master chef playing the pallet between extremes of texture and temperature - and like the fusion of French and Asian culture that is Vietnam.

`The Eaves of Heaven` covers over 30 years of war in Vietnam as it transitioned from a "feudal" age to the modern world in one or two generations - the Japanese in WWII, the French and then the Americans. One mans lifetime saw it all from start to end. Through this wonderfully written, humane and moving memoir of a single life, I was better able to understand Vietnam, its people and its recent past.

Mr. Pham has done his father a great service. This book is something of a memoir written from the perspective of his father through the son's pen. This heart-rending story catalogues the trials, the horrors, and the injustices suffered by the average Vietnamese citizen at the hands of their political elite--on both sides Communists and Nationalists---and also provides insight into traditional family time---complete with "grasshopper" hunting and cricket fights among the children.
Mr. Pham's description of "the Elder's" moral and physical courage in the face of friends joining one movement or another or physical danger is illustrative of a courageous and dedicated spirit.
Read the book in two sittings---and was truly impressed with both the style and content.
Highly recommended---I'm going to read Catfish and Mandala soon.

I just recently returned from a business trip to Vietnam. While there I realized how little I knew of Vietnam and set about to correct this. Was overwhelmed about where to start but thankfully someone recommended this book. Well written and hard to put down, it focuses on the life of one individual and yet manages to tie together all the main events of recent Vietnamese history. It certainly put the little I knew into context and made me hungry to learn more. I was so fortunately to be recommended this book - a fantastic place to start! (Came as a jolt when 1/2 way through the book I suddenly realized that I had stayed in the hotel on the front cover...)