Customer Reviews

Shallow Graves: Two Women and Vietnam

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This book in poetry form is written by two women - - one is Vietnamese and the other is American who was in Vietnam as the wife of a news correspondent. The tales are of the confrontations, juxtaposition, and over-riding humanness of two cultures. Some of the Vietnamese experiences were so vividly painful that I could not read them though without resting my head for respite.

The American woman discusses her Vietnamese encounters in the 1970's. Nga talks about her whole life - - from Vietnam under the French, to China, back to Vietnam and then to the United States. She tells of her marriage, her family and her uprootedness, all of the time being deeply rooted to her culture and self.

This is the story of the Vietnam war told from two perspectives, that of the young wife of a Time Magazine correspondent stationed in Vietnam. The author also taught English Literature to Vietnamese. The other story is told from the viewpoint of Mrs. Na, a Vietnamese woman who also worked for Time Magazine, and whose whole life was turned upside down by the events of the war. Although the story is written in blank verse, it reads like a novel. I couldn't put it down, nor could my mother-in-law and others to whom I gave it as a gift.

Poems and prose by the wife of an American Correspondence and a Vietnamese mother bring a personal perspective to the vicious and senseless war Americans fought in Viet Nam and its aftermath. It is unfortunate that this book is no longer in print.