Martha King

Among the Boat People - A Memoir of Vietnam Nhi Mahn Chung Autonomedia, 2019 Nhi Chung has been working on this book off and on for over twenty years. A few portions have been published, mostly "earlier versions" since rewritten -- but none of them in terms of readability, literary conventions, story-telling principals -- none of them WORK. Just the same, a comprehensive new edition from Autonomedia was launched at BlueStockings Bookshop on Friday, January 17. Why? The lack of consistent timeline, the disjointed pacing, the flattened emotions, actually make Ms. Chung's book an amazing document and finally a deeply moving one. Her book through its many changes, quotations from the work of others and evidence of rewriting "help", remains utterly artless. I know that word has a sweet definition. It can be taken to mean charm. Without guile or artifice. But at bottom "artless" means exactly what it says: Without art. ...