Prisoners [Hardcover]

Wayne Karlin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2000

Central to Wayne Karlin's novel Prisoners is the story of Kiet, a runaway teenage orphan from Vietnam who is seeking her Black father and whose flight impinges upon the lives of several other characters, many of them Vietnam War veterans. The drama of the interlinking stories illuminates the "seepage of history" and examines the "crimes of war and family and skin" in the Tidewater region in Maryland. Karlin unpeels their histories like an onion, layer after layer, until the violent climax, and a denouement that offers understanding, hope, and reconciliation.

"Karlin is one of the most gifted, passionate, and powerful writers of his generation."-George Garrett, in choosing Prisoners as one of the most notable books of 1998 in the Dictionary of Literary Biography

"As the novel weaves characters and their voices in and out and moves toward a shattering climax in which age-old sin and horror come to bear on contemporary life, the reader realizes that the story of a young girl's search for a lost father is really the story of the world America has created. It is a dark-laced nightmare vision that still, ironically, has room for salvation."-Multicultural Review

"Poetic, powerful fiction."-Mary Ann Carroll, Booklist

"Prisoners...is a searing exploration of intermingled stories involving a Vietnamese-American teenager and three Vietnam veterans...it contains Karlin's illuminating prose, bluntly realistic dialogue, and mysteries that are solved slowly and surprisingly." Marc Leepson, The VVA Veteran

Wayne Karlin, called by Tim O'Brien "one of the most gifted writers to emerge from the Vietnam War," has written four previous novels: Crossover, Lost Armies, The Extras and US. In 1995, he co-edited The Other Side of Heaven: Post War Fiction by Vietnamese and American Writers, which has become a benchmark anthology. He is also the series editor for Curbstone's Voices from Vietnam Series of contemporary fiction.

Also available by Wayne Karlin
The Other Side of Heaven
PB $1.95, 1-880684-31-4 CUSA

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Vietnam War haunts the memories and the Civil War haunts the family histories of characters living on the Maryland shore in this dark, bitter fifth novel (Crossover, etc.). Kiet, a 15-year-old Amerasian girl, dons Viet Cong-style black pajamas as she searches vainly for her African American father. She's on the run from the cops, who want to use her as evidence against a sexually abusive foster parent. Sheriff Alex Hallam, a white Vietnam vet tormented by his actions during the war, finds pursuing Kiet somehow therapeutic. His deputy, Russell Hallam, an embittered African American Vietnam vet, is related to Alex through a family tree with roots in the Civil War and a brutal Yankee prison camp. While the cops hunt for Kiet, the other characters wallow in self-pity and guilt, miserable about their jobs, spouses and ethnic identities. A Jewish archeologist ties the plot together, first finding evidence of murder by Civil War prison guards and later doing forensic work on MIAs in Vietnam. When the paths of Kiet and the sheriff finally converge, a killing abruptly ends their torment. Karlin's resolution, however, is neither satisfying nor convincing, and the reader is left as depressed and directionless as the characters themselves.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Karlin is the author of a handful of titles, fiction and nonfiction (Rumors & Stones, LJ 10/15/96), centering on the Vietnam War era. He is known for his poetic and emotive use of language, and this compact novel does not disappoint, intertwining several personal stories to show how war can have an impact in many different ways. The stories focus on Kiet, an orphan from Vietnam who never knew her father, a black American soldier. She has run away from her halfway house on the coast of Maryland, and the townspeople, many of them with war-related histories of their own, become caught up in the search for her. Karlin presents multiple versions of war and its prisoners. Although the Vietnam War may be the overall theme, we are also exposed to the Civil War, Desert Storm, the Arab-Israeli conflict, racial tension, and even the warlike ambiance of a hospital emergency room. The narratives flow together gracefully, and Karlin's language is finely crafted. Recommended for public and academic libraries.?Beth Gibbs, P.L. of Charlotte & Mecklenburg Cty., Davidson, NC
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 172 pages
• Publisher: Curbstone Press; 1st edition (October 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 188068456X
• ISBN-13: 978-1880684566
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,100,547 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Wayne Karlin has published seven novels: Marble Mountain, The Wished-For Country, Prisoners, Lost Armies, The Extras, Us, and Crossover, and three works of creative non-fiction: Rumors and Stones, War Movies, and Wandering Souls: Journeys with the Dead and the Living in Viet Nam. While he is perhaps best known for his books about the aftermath of the Vietnam War, he has also written a historical novel set in 17th Century Maryland, a spy novel centered in Eastern Europe and another novel set in the Middle East. His writing career began after service as a Marine in the Vietnam War when he became an editor of Curbstone Press and co-edited the first anthology of veterans' fiction from the war: Free Fire Zone: Short Stories by Vietnam Veterans. More recently, as American editor for Curbstone's Voices from Vietnam series, he has edited and adapted translations of writers from Vietnam, including (with Le Minh Khue and Truong Vu), The Other Side of Heaven: Postwar Fiction by Vietnamese and American Writers, which was listed as a Critics' Choice for 1995-1996, and (with Ho Anh Thai) Love After War: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam, an anthology chosen by The San Francisco Chronicle as one of the 100 best books of 2003. Karlin was one of the script writers and a consultant for the film Song of the Stork, a Vietnamese-Singaporean co-production which has won the Best Feature Film title at the Milano Film Festival, was the first Asian film chosen in the Official Selection of the Taormina Film Festival in Sicily, Italy and was in the Official Selection of the Reflection of Our Time category of the Montreal Film Festival and has been shown in other festivals in Belgium, Canada and Thailand. He was the consulting producer and writer for a six part National Public Radio radio series on the aftermath of the Vietnam war. Karlin has received five State of Maryland Individual Artist Awards in Fiction, two Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Paterson Prize in Fiction for 1999 (with Barbara Kingsolver), and the Vietnam Veterans of American Excellence in Arts Award in 2005. A Professor of Languages and Literature at the College of Southern Maryland, Karlin is married to Ohnmar Thein Karlin, and has one son, the travel writer Adam Karlin.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review Quotes, July 17, 2001

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Curbstone Press, Jantje Tielken, Editorial As... - See all my reviews

This review is from: Prisoners (Paperback)

"Though more books have been written about Vietnam than any other war, Karlin moves himself into the upper echelon of this vast list of authors with this story of Kiet-Keisha. In terms of giving authentic, literary substance, he belongs with the other giants of his genre. Moreover, his prose is as richly poetic and resonating as Walt Whitman." --American Book Review

"Karlin is one of the most gifted, passionate, and powerful writers of his generation." --George Garrett, in choosing PRISONERS as one of the most notable books of 1998 in the Dictionary of Literary Biography.

"As the novel weaves characters and their voices in and out and moves toward a shattering climax in which age-old sin and horror come to bear on contemporary life, the reader realizes that the story of a young girl's search for a lost father is really the story of the world America has created. It is a dark-laces nightmare vision that still, ironically, has room for salvation." --Multicultural Review

"PRISONERS is the kind of novel which tells the rest of us what fiction can do when it is at its very best." --Fred D'Aguiar, Winner of the Whitbread Prize for The Longest Memory.