Book Log 2020 #21: The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

In the last days of the Vietnam War, our narrator gets on a flight to the US with one of his friends and a South Vietnamese general. The group settle in southern California, where the general eventually opens a liquor store while continuing to plot a return to Vietnam to overthrow the communist government.

Little does he know, though, that the narrator is actually a mole for the communists. He continues to keep his handler apprised of the goings on with the general and their plans to foment rebellion, while working to maintain his cover.

I found this book fascinating. I know very little about how high-ranking Vietnamese refugees eventually settled in the US, and found the wishful thinking of returning in triumph (fueled by despair) an echo of the Cuban refugees who participated in the Bay of Pigs. I also found the narrator's constant balance of his roles engaging, as he not only had to deal with his professional cover, but by also being a mixed race person in the US (which sets him apart not only from white America but his fully Vietnamese friends). He's not an unreliable narrator, but you can see how his decision-making gets compromised by his dual life.

Nguyen won the Pulitzer Prize in 2016 for this novel, his first. Very much recommended.