The Broken Country
On Trauma, a Crime, and the Continuing Legacy of Vietnam
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
An attack in a grocery store parking lot launches an examination of the Vietnam War’s dark legacy—by the author of The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee.
The Broken Country uses a violent incident that took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2012 as a springboard for examining the long-term cultural and psychological effects of the Vietnam War. To make sense of the shocking and baffling incident—in which a young homeless man born in Vietnam stabbed a number of white men purportedly in retribution for the war—Paisley Rekdal draws on a remarkable range of material and fashions it into a compelling account of the dislocations suffered by the Vietnamese and also by American-born veterans over the past decades. She interweaves a narrative about the crime with information collected in interviews, historical examination of the arrival of Vietnamese immigrants in the 1970s, a critique of portrayals of Vietnam in American popular culture, and discussions of the psychological consequences of trauma. This work allows us to better understand transgenerational and cultural trauma and advances our still complicated struggle to comprehend the war.
“A moving and often gripping meditation on the fallout of war, from violence and racism to melancholy and trauma.”—Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Refugees
“Assembling a remarkable range of materials and testimonies, she shows us both the persistence of war’s trauma and how we might more ethically imagine those it harms.”—Beth Loffreda, author of Losing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics in the Aftermath of Anti-Gay Murder
“A compact, thoughtful debut addressing violence, immigrant identity, and the long shadow of the Vietnam War…. A poignant, relevant synthesis of cultural studies and true-crime drama.—Kirkus Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Motivated by a 2012 incident in Salt Lake City in which Kiet Thanh Ly, a 34-year-old homeless man born in Vietnam, stabbed two white males in the parking lot of a supermarket, Rekdal, a professor of English at the University of Utah, sets out to study the cultural and psychological effects of war on communities over time. The victims of the stabbing were ostensibly attacked in revenge for the Vietnam War and Rekdal comes to terms with this brutal act by a person who had not personally experienced the war by probing the event as indicative of America's "continued fascination with the Vietnam War." A subtle and insightful chronicler, Rekdal draws on a variety of material: reports of the crime; interviews with the victims and witnesses, as well as with Vietnamese-Americans and veterans; and visits to war monuments in the U.S. and Hanoi. The book incorporates a history of the arrival of Vietnamese immigrants to America in the 1970s and includes discussions of the psychological effects of trauma and the ways the Vietnam War is portrayed and memorialized in American culture. This contemplative, moving meditation on the ongoing effects of war emphasizes stories of dislocation, transgenerational trauma, and the feelings of shame that permeate "the narratives of both relocation and repatriation." By drawing attention to the plight of all those harmed by the Vietnam War not just American soldiers but also "Asian allies and foes, the children we left behind, and the refugees we took in" Rekdal deepens the understanding of the far-reaching cost of war.
