The long-awaited new novel from one of America’s most highly regarded contemporary writers, The Committed follows the unnamed Sympathizer as he arrives in Paris in the early 1980s with his blood brother Bon. The pair try to overcome their pasts and ensure their futures by engaging in capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing.

Traumatized by his reeducation at the hands of his former best friend, Man, and struggling to assimilate into French culture, the Sympathizer finds Paris both seductive and disturbing. As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals whom he meets at dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese “aunt”, he finds stimulation for his mind but also customers for his narcotic merchandise. But the new life he is making has perils he has not foreseen, whether the self-torture of addiction, the authoritarianism of a state locked in a colonial mindset, or the seeming paradox of how to reunite his two closest friends whose worldviews put them in absolute opposition. The Sympathizer will need all his wits, resourcefulness, and moral flexibility if he is to prevail.

Both literary thriller and novel of ideas, The Committed is a blistering portrayal of commitment and betrayal that will cement Viet Thanh Nguyen’s position in the firmament of American letters.

This audiobook is a sequel to The Sympathizer.

Copyright 2021 by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Recorded by arrangement with Grove Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic, Inc. Epigraph by Rithy Panh with Christophe Bataille, excerpted from The Elimination, translated by John Cullen. Copyright 2014 by Rithy Panh. Reprinted by permission of Other Press. “Seasons in the Sun.” Written by Jacques Brel and Rod McKuen. Published by Edward B. Marks Music Company (BMI). All rights administered by Round Hill Carlin, LLC. “Et Moi, Et Moi, Et Moi.” Words and Music by Jacques Dutronc and Jacques Lanzmann. Copyright (c) 1966 Alpha Editions Musicales. Copyright Renewed. All Rights Administered by BMG Rights Management (US) LLC. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC.

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Listening Length	12 hours and 28 minutes
Author	Viet Thanh Nguyen
Narrator	Francois Chau
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com Release Date	March 02, 2021
Publisher	Audible Studios
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B08SY8D4BZ
Best Sellers Rank	#1,484 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #3 in City Life Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) #3 in Noir Fiction #6 in Urban Fiction (Audible Books & Originals)

Customer reviews

5 star		54%
4 star		24%
3 star		16%
2 star		3%
1 star		2%

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Top reviews from the United States

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BazzzzG

Not Impressed

Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2021

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I did enjoy The Sympathizer, despite the writer calling a key character "the crapulent major" every damn time, as if that were a title or writers were limited to one adjective per person. Now we have the continuation of that story in The Committed, and there's some fine writing and commentary to be found here on colonialism, communism and capitalism. But the book bored me. The plot repeatedly stalls, interrupted by rambling and paragraphs without purpose. There's excess and self-indulgence on display, including one paragraph that putters on for nearly seven full pages. I applaud anyone creating new paths or breaking moulds in writing, but this attempt at that is not one to emulate. While there's much to admire in this work, there's also much to regret. Some of the writing reads like a first draft, the storytelling fails to impress, the plot often losing pace and lacking a primary piece providing narrative tension to pull readers forward. In sum, this book needed a better editor, one who would have cut away the ample fat and paid far more attention to plot and storytelling.

11 people found this helpful

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Lynne

Fiction and Non Fiction

Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2021

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No denying this is a brilliant mind on full display - an author with great power in his craft as a story teller, but also as a translator of multiple serious works by heavy hitters in the fields of political science and philosophy.

However, as others have stated, this is a novel heavily interrupted by didactic prose on the meaning of revolution, the destruction of colonization, and the ills of capitalism. Thus, the story line suffers somewhat from so much of the book being a philosophical questioning of the ideas which form the foundation of the war and its aftermath in Nguyen's homeland, Vietnam. Thus, this is not a straight forward novel in the usual sense. It is a creative blend of fiction and non fiction. So, if you are just looking for a good story, skip it.
But it is an education and the story does pack an impact as did The Sympathizer. Also Nguyen has sharpened his wit so the book is replete with both humor and horror. Also, I found the self-loathing hero quite lovable. And I think the reader gains a real knowledge of the author in this book with his central character speaking the beliefs and feelings of Nyguen himself.

7 people found this helpful

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rebecca l rockwood

More than an action-packed saga

Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2021

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This book is packed with information and insight about relations among the Vietnamese, the French, the Americans, and the effects of colonization and communism. He narrator reflects on his turbulent life in Vietnam and America and tries to come to terms with his current situation in France. He is emotionally scarred after working as a spy and spending time in a re-education camp. As he tries to start a new life in Paris, he finds himself living a dangerous life as a gangster, which does not help him to improve his deeply traumatized mental state. He describes himself as a “man of two minds” held together by “a screw which is coming loose.” As the story progresses, we see how this mental state plays out in his actions and reactions to the situations in which he finds himself. The book contains a great deal of violence, contrasted with introspection and dream-like sequences as well as reflections on his childhood, relationships with women, and bonds of friendship. Through his confessions and inner dialogue, the narrator tackles his struggles with his divided loyalties and guilty conscience.

5 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Interesting- Partly Thrilling/Chilling and (Too Much) Partly Boring

Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2021

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Lots of direct plot weaving with a WHOLE lot of blood and guts, sex and more sex of all kinds, drugs, alcohol and more drugs and alcohol, gangsters, priests, Catholicism, killings and more killings, brutal beatings with far too lengthy and detailed descriptions, Communism, anti-Communism, more sex for sure, lots of crying, lots of screaming, Arabs, Chinois, whites, lousy food. Boat people. Napalm. Refugee camp. L.A., Paris. But in addition to all the direct plot weaving, there is a ton of stream of consciousness often reminiscent of WB Yeats or Joyce that just goes nowhere and gets so awfully boring. Extremely long sentences now and then. Whole lot of philosophy. Marx, Sartre. Etc. And all in all fashionably cryptic at the bottom line. Interesting writing but I wouldn’t recommend it to very many of my friends. In fact, maybe none.

One person found this helpful

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Anne Layton

No one is forgiven.

Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2021

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The author has a unique style of writing that creates an alternate world of characters and plot. He constantly reminds us of the similarities of both sides of the war and not forgetting their excesses.

2 people found this helpful

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Nancy B

Brilliant. It will open your mind.

Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2021

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It would do this book an injustice to attempt to summarize it, other than to say it will make you think in patterns you either have never used or failed to exercise with the insistence the book demands. It is a page-turner unlike any I have read.

One person found this helpful

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M. Gibson

SCAM

Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2021

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SCAM, THE WAY IT TRICKS YOU INTO THINKING YOU NEED TO COMPLETE YOUR BOOK PURCHASE WHEN IN ESSENCE YOUR BOOK HAS BEEN PURCHASED AND THEY ARE PIGGYBACKING YOU INTO PURCHASING AN UDESIRABLE AUDIO, IN ADDITION. THEN....TO BOOT....THERE IS NO WAY TO CANCEL.

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ira feirstein

This will be the best book of the year even though it’s only March.

Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2021

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If you read one book a year this should be it He writes novels of ideas that are absolute page turners.

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