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Ru: In Vietnamese it means lullaby; in French it is a small stream, but also signifies a flow - of tears, blood, money. Kim Thúy's Ru is literature at its most crystalline: the flow of a life on the tides of unrest and on to more peaceful waters. In vignettes of exquisite clarity, sharp observation and sly wit, we are carried along on an unforgettable journey from a palatial residence in Saigon to a crowded and muddy Malaysian refugee camp, and onward to a new life in Quebec. There, the young girl feels the embrace of a new community, and revels in the chance to be part of the American Dream.
As an adult, the waters become rough again: now a mother of two, she must learn to shape her love around the younger boy's autism. Moving seamlessly from past to present, from history to memory and back again, Ru is a book that celebrates life in all its wonder: its moments of beauty and sensuality, brutality and sorrow, comfort and comedy.
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Rendered in spare vignettes, Kim's lyrical debut novel is an autobiographical impression of motherhood and exile. Forced to flee their privileged, intellectual life in Communist Saigon, Nguyen An Tinh (an "extension" of her almost identically named mother and a stand-in for Th y), born during the Tet offensive, navigates the Gulf of Siam bound for a Malaysian refugee camp, where she and her family live for several months before making their way to Canada. There, Nguyen is blinded by the whiteness of the snow and the blankness of her slate. But her new home quickly makes its marks she learns French and English, what to wear in the harsh Quebecois winters, and the ways in which the American dream extends its reach around the globe. The narrative wanders through time as Nguyen mourns her autistic son's inability to say maman, recalls her childhood in Vietnam, and muses on the fork in her family tree that her life in the West represents. But like the married men Nguyen prefers, whose "ring fingers with their histories keep me remote, aloof, in the shadows," the disjointed narrative keeps readers at a distance, allowing tender glimpses of Nguyen's pain, but never fully exposing her.
