Being an immigrant is never easy and too often the Vietnamese viewpoint is left out of the conversation. This is what makes this memoir unique; not only is it told through the perspective of a mother/daughter relationship, but it is told through the Vietnamese point of view, not a solider or a politician, even though it touches on the sensitive topic of the war. Readers get to witness Lan’s transition from naïve immigrant to law student, especially the moment she decides to study law – when she was working in a video store and the police questioned her regarding missing money. The insight into Vietnamese culture is interesting, especially the system of ranking people, i.e. calling relatives Father Two, Sister Three. Her shared immigrant experiences of discrimination makes her relatable: “We may have Americanness officially documented in birth certificates, passports, or naturalization papers. But despite the seductive panache of the American Dream, the message that we can never really be American has curiously been passed down from generation to generation.” Harlan also has this conflict about being too American versus not being Vietnamese enough and her writing is more poetic: “This life isn’t meant to be a race. It is meant to be a long, slow dream of perfect confusion, loneliness, deep friendships, and ambition. I’m ready.” When she writes “You can be American outside, but not in the house” it speaks to what children of immigrants sometimes deal with at home. They are expected to be Americanized outside the house, but at home they are expected to speak the native language and adhere to that culture’s expectations, leading to an emotional tug of war.

Overall, “Family in Six Tones” is an impressive and poignant exploration of the mother/daughter relationship which often has the same struggles and insecurities passed on from generation to generation. It is recommended for readers who appreciate a distinctive perspective on the struggles of refugees and familial bonds.

I was initially skeptical about the chapter written by Harlan, a sixteen year old, but her chapters ended up being captivating. This was a great memoir demonstrating the differences in cultures and generations within one family. It didn’t quite capture me completely but still a great book.

Family in Six Tones is exceptionally well written. One of the authors, Lan Cao (the mother), wrote the following about English literature:

“…in soft contemplative focus, unspoken and on the pages of a book, English was something else altogether, linguistically smooth and gentle, strangely more modest and relaxed.”

I realized after reading the quote that Family in Six Tones felt “linguistically smooth and gentle” and, honestly, beautiful. I especially liked learning all the new words (examples being alacrity, itinerant and parochialism, to list a few). The more sophisticated vocabulary did not detract from the narrative at all–in fact, I think it enhanced the rhythm of the memoir.

However, the dual narration in Family in Six Tones made the memoir outstanding. Memoirs are a recent interest of mine. I haven’t read that many, but from the few that I have read, memoirs are a kind of storytelling that is only capable of giving one side of the story: that of the authors. However, with its dual narration, Family in Six Tones allows the reader to delve into the implications of war trauma that one narrator perhaps cannot see or is unwilling to discuss in detail. Harlan’s (the daughter) first narrative shocked me because it framed Lan's (her mother's) experiences in a new light.

Family in Six Tones is a powerful book that made me cry, made me smile and opened my eyes. My husband came to Canada with his brother at the age of 19, sent by their parents in the hopes of a better life for them. I found many parts of his own story within this story (the struggles of different cultures, longing for the home from their youth yet knowing that it is just not the same, the new community that is built in this new country and so on). I can’t even begin to imagine or put myself in the shoes of a refugee or an immigrant, instead I try to do my best to understand and be respectful. For many, they are not leaving by choice (for adventure, for a new job, etc) but instead they are fleeing war, persecution, politics, poverty and so much more. They have seen things that others cannot even begin to imagine. I cried when I got to the part where Lan’s parents sent her to America alone. The strength and love that they had for her was incredible, I can’t even begin to imagine the hurt they carried within seeing their daughter leave but also the sacrifice and hope for her future that they saw.

The story is told in an unique manner – both in Lan’s and Harlan’s perspectives which gives us such a personal look at their lives and helps us to fill in the gaps. We learn about Lan’s family history in Saigon and the struggles they faced before and during the Vietnam War. We watch as she boards a plane to America, not really understanding that this is not a short vacation but instead her parents have made the greatest sacrifice to protect her. We watch as she becomes exposed to American culture and we see the differences between the two cultures and how difficult this must have been for her to find her own way in a country that is so unlike her home. Many times, America is not the warm, welcome inviting place it should be for her – instead she is faced with racism and hate because of her birth place (some of this may have been due to the war but after witnessing how people have treated immigrants myself, it could be more than that). We watch as she grows into a young woman, heads off to college and finally as she becomes a mother. I can’t even begin to imagine the stress of becoming a mother, the fears she would have for her daughter and never really knowing should she raise her in an American culture or her Vietnamese culture. We watch as she struggles with the rules that she grew up with, changes her mind but is always trying to be mindful of the American culture that her daughter will have to navigate.

With Harlan’s sections, we see a new side of Lan – the sides that are permanently affected by what she saw as a child and the sides that she tries to hide. No one can ever truly appreciate the long term affects of war, fleeing your country and starting over can have on you mentally, emotionally and physically. We saw glimpses of this in Harlan’s chapters and she shared this with love, respect and honesty. I loved the way Harlan wrote, she shares her heart openly and you just can’t stop reading.

This is a beautiful story of family, the mother-daughter relationship, the struggles of a refugee and starting over in a new country and culture. I couldn’t put this memoir down, it was an intimate and honest story that was told with respect and love, a definite must read novel.

I LOVE memoirs, and this memoir alternates vantage points/narrators between Lan, a lawyer who came to America as a child during the Vietnam war, and her teenage daughter Harlan. The book helps us learn more about the refugee experience and how it relates to the parenting experience to a first generation American child.
. ⁣⁣
The book explores two journeys...the journey of a refugee--away from war and loss towards peace and a new life--and the journey of a mother raising a child--to be secure and happy--which are both difficult paths filled with detours and stumbling blocks⁣

As a mom of teenage daughters, this book is definitely relatable! ⁣

Family in Six Tones
By Lan Cao

I was fascinated to read this innovative dual first-person memoir by Lan Cao and her daughter Harlan Margaret Van Cao in a refreshing voice. This is an immigrant story that touches upon family relationships and struggles between mother and daughter, refugee experience in America, assimilation to the American culture, racism, and bullying. The writing was superb both heart breaking and heart warming as we read their honest experiences and life story. This is not just a Vietnamese story, this is an American story.

A powerful memoir that I highly recommend.

The blurb says so much already, what else can I tell you about Family in Six Tones? Well, for one, it is a really beautiful book. I’m usually a pretty fast reader but I found myself slowing down on this one, savouring every word. Both women’s stories were just so touching and filled with emotion that I couldn’t do anything else but throw myself into the experience of reading their stories.

For me, there were two sides to this book. The first side was a means of learning more about the Vietnam war, the Vietnamese culture, and what it was like to take this culture to the US. By reading Family in Six Tones, I learned a lot. A lot of fact, but, most importantly, I learned a lot about the human experience. What it is like to be a fish out of water in a new place. What it is like to carry serious trauma through your life and not be able to deal with it. What it is like to have a mother/daughter with a different culture to you and the struggles that can bring.

The second side of this book is the mother/daughter relationship. Both women are brutally honest in discussing their relationship. That meant there were times when I felt sympathetic and understanding toward one or both, while other times I disliked them because of their selfishness and unwillingness to help one another and their relationship. It made for a conflicting but genuine read.

Overall, I both enjoyed and learned from Family in Six Tones. I would certainly recommend it to anyone interested in this genre.

Read my full review here: http://mimi-cyberlibrarian.blogspot.com/2020/09/family-in-six-tones-refugee-mother.html

An introduction to the book: “In alternating narrative chapters between mother and daughter, two women write about their past and families in this literary memoir. Lan, the mother, came to the U.S. as a 13-year-old refugee. Harlan, her daughter, struggles to make friends and come into her own. The two women narrate their intense struggles as they each form their own identities.”

Family in Six Tones is a striking memoir, for the most part because Lan Cao is an excellent author. She was born in Vietnam and fled the war when she was 13 in 1975. Her daughter Harlan was born in Virginia in 2002, so Harlan is in her teenage years as the mother-daughter duo write this book. After Harlan is born, Lan Cao faces the challenge of not just surviving and succeeding on her own, but now she is responsible for helping this young American-born child survive and thrive.

I kept underlining passages that I found particularly appealing. Passages particularly in Lan Cao’s portion of the narrative. She has the ability to put thoughts into words that are both heart-rending and relatable. Harlan’s story, while very different from her mother’s, is also appealing in a bratty-daughter kind of way. I kept thinking, “Gosh, I’ve already been through this several times with my daughter and my young adult granddaughters. I don’t need to go through this again.” This thought is echoed by the Publisher’s Weekly reviewer who mentions that Harlan’s experiences are “thin.” On the other hand, not very many teenaged girls are able to express their issues with their mothers quite so eloquently. The Kirkus reviewer says, “What makes this memoir especially compelling is the way these two separate but linked perspectives illuminate silences or gaps in the stories that each woman tells.”

Lan Cao’s memoir tells a refugee story that is totally relatable, and it meant a great deal to me because of my trip to Vietnam a year ago, when we experienced the aftermath of a war that continues to reverberate in that country. Harlan relates how she sees the war resonating in her mother all these years later. Their trip to Saigon together helps to heal both of their wounds and find some common ground. Whatever the weaknesses of the joint narration, there are moments of profound meaning for the reader.
In 2015 when Family in Six Tones was just an idea, the two did a Story Corps interview which is especially interesting.

This memoir was told in alternating chapters by Lan, an attorney and author who came to the U.S. as a young refugee girl in 1975, and Harlan, an American teenager and the daughter of Lan.

Lan and Harlan struggle with different aspects of their heritage and life in America. Lan wants to preserve her memories of the Vietnam of her youth, and pass down some of the important (to her) societal norms of Vietnam to her daughter. At the same time, she also wants to forget the horrible memories of the war she grew up during, and the battleground that was realistically the Vietnam of her youth. Harlan just wants to be a normal American teen, which is difficult with her mother’s Vietnamese expectations and the background of the Vietnamese community. She understands her mother has struggled, but she just wants normalcy.

Both women shared their lives and hardships eloquently and clearly, but the same event can be perceived quite differently from two different people who experienced it. Lan and Harlan definitely had different takeaways from the same experiences. They held nothing back while describing the full impact of events on them physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Overall, I’d give this book 3 out of 5 stars. Lan’s viewpoint was a unique presentation of life in a war zone and as a refugee. Harlan told the interesting story of a teenager who doesn’t want to ignore her heritage, but also doesn’t want to be held to standards from a world that is not reality for her.

First off, I think Lan Cao’s grasp of the English language is amazing. Her word choice s perfect as she tells her story of growing up in Vietnam and moving to the US with an American “uncle and aunt” shortly before the fall of Saigon. Her explanation of the differences in Vietnamese parents and American parents in expectations and mindset makes it clear what a big jump in was in beliefs to parent in America. By contrast her daughter, Harlan, is born in America. I love how she explains her mother’s “shadow selves” that emerged after the traumas of Vietnamese life. Harlan is a teenager and I think her observations are extremely important as she is still figuring out who she is. I would love to see a follow-up to her views in 20 years, when she knows who she is. The two perspectives are interesting, and I feel that anyone willing to share their personal fears and views of their mother in a non-self-centered way has a future as an author.

This book was such a good read on so many levels. The authors are mother and daughter. The mom, Lan, was a refugee, while her daughter is a citizen. The two women are honest about their experiences in both situations. Not only does this book give a glimpse of what it is like to be a refugee, but also of the complexities of mother and daughter relationships.

Thanks, #Netgalley #PenguinBooks @FSBassociates @AnnaSacca for a complimentary e ARC of #FamilyinSixTones for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Lan Cao escaped Viet Nam (and the Vietnam War) as a refugee when she was a child. The sacrificial love of her parents and the hopes they had for her future caused them to put her on a plane alone to travel to America to live with a distant relative. Leaving Viet Nam was traumatic and adjusting to a new family and culture added to the trauma, especially since she thought she was going on a brief vacation. Lan endures extreme culture shock (it’s especially sad that she can’t figure out how to open her milk carton at lunch), completes school, becomes a lawyer, marries, and has a child. Her daughter, Harlan, navigates two cultures and rails against her mom’s overprotectiveness. In this memoir, we hear both perspectives. As we understand that Lan’s fearfulness for her daughter is the result of her own childhood trauma, we also sympathize with Harlan and her need to fit into her American culture and be allowed some freedom. This is an “own voices” story of loss, trauma, a mother/daughter relationship, and the refugee experience.

Reading Family in Six Tones immerses us in the refugee experience…..the loss, the trauma, the fear, the uncertainty, the confusion, and the longing for home. Lan provides many details about her experience that helps us feel what it would be like if we were in her situation. As a teacher, my heart broke for Lan when she couldn’t open her milk carton at lunch and the children laughed at her.

When immigrants come to another country, they come with a dream, but refugees are fleeing for their lives and are running from trauma more than they are pursuing a dream. Even though they are grateful to be in a safer place, it hasn’t been of their own choosing. The adjustment to a different culture is complicated by the trauma and loss they have experienced. Not only is the loss and trauma a factor in adjusting to their new country, but their past experiences affect the way they raise their children. Lan’s traumatic experiences cause her to be overprotective with her daughter….always imagining that the worst could happen and being overprepared for any turn of events. The author does a fantastic job of sharing these situations in a way that we compassionately empathize with the underlying motivations.

All of the trauma affects the relationship between Lan and her daughter. We often notice that children of immigrants want to assimilate and identify more with the new culture than the parents’ culture and that this can cause tension in the family. However, the trauma that Lan experienced causes her to parent Harlan with great fear so that Harlan also develops fears and uncertainties. Harlan eventually grows rebellious. An interesting element in the memoir is hearing from both perspectives. As observers, we can empathize with both Lan and Harlan. The hopeful note is that they both love each other very much and love can mitigate fear-based parenting when children are old enough to see parents objectively as hurting people and when parents can let young adults make their own decisions. I was left with hope for their relationship.

Content Considerations: references to war, PTSD, racism, bullying

I’m definitely recommending Family in Six Tones for readers who might work with or know refugees, for those who are interested in reading more about the Vietnam War from a refugee’s perspective, and for fans of thought-provoking memoir. It is an honest, heartfelt, detailed, and ambitious read.

In 1975, thirteen-year-old Lan Cao arrived in America on her own, her family remaining behind in Saigon, Vietnam. When the war we know as the Vietnam War was declared over in the United States, Lan’s family joined her in the US where they together and separately worked to build a new life. Wealthy and successful in Saigon, life was drastically different in the United States where the entire extended family crammed into a single house in Virginia. In the face of multiple obstacles, Lan worked hard in school and went on to become a lawyer, professor, and author. In Family in Six Tones, Lan details her journey from Saigon to the US and how her experience as a refugee and an immigrant was central to her relationships and experiences. Particularly her experiences as a mother.

In alternating chapters, Lan’s teenage daughter Harlan tells of her own experiences as a first generation child and as an American teenager growing up in a world entirely different than her mother’s.

This combination of authors casts a unique light on the multi-generational experience of refugees and immigrants and how these experiences cast a long shadow over the lives of not just those who experience them but their children too. Much of Lan’s life and personality are affected by the years of war and trauma she has been through and this carries through to how she parents and how she relates (or doesn’t relate) to her very different daughter.

Both authors are extremely honest in their story-telling and quite thoughtful in their self-reflection. They write of some of the same situations but often offer very different perspectives on them, showing both a great love for each other but also the deep divide that exists between them. Lan’s sections were definitely more engaging to me. Her writing style read as more natural to me but she also had more life experience to share and more stories to tell. There was a clearer narrative arc to her life.

This leads to the main weakness that I felt in Family in Six Tones which is simply how young Harlan is. Can you truly write a worthwhile memoir before you’ve even graduated high school? Harlan has experienced life as the child of a refugee, the death of a parent, and high school bullying and while these are all real and difficult circumstances, there isn’t a lot here that makes Harlan feel unique or like her story would be more interesting than the average 18-year-old. A lot of what we learn about Harlan from Harlan is told to us and there is a sense of a young woman who is still figuring herself out. (Of course! She’s a teenager!) I couldn’t help but wonder if in five or ten years Harlan will cringe at certain sections. It certainly made me glad that there is no permanent and public record of my thoughts on life from high school.

For a reader interested in the Vietnam-American War or in the unique experiences of children of refugees, there is a lot that this book has to offer. As a memoir, it falters even while you might appreciate what it’s trying to do.

Alternating chapters between Lan, a lawyer who came to America as a child during the Vietnam war, and her teenage daughter Harlan, we learn about the refugee experience and how it relates to the parenting experience. ⁣
⁣
Lan Cao knows how to write. She has published two fiction books previously and is one smart cookie. She has clearly passed these traits down onto her daughter as well. This entire story was so interesting. I loved the back and forth between mother and daughter; how they would each mention a similar event or discussion, but the reader saw it from entirely different perspectives. It was interesting watching the parenting experience as Lan reconciled her Vietnamese upbringing with the new American ideals she was learning and her daughter was raised on. Parenting questions such as allowing her daughter to quit violin became cultural examinations. I am impressed and shocked by her daughter’s honesty and introspection into her mother’s experience and her own reactions to it. I think Harlan will be going far and we will be hearing from her again. ⁣
⁣
Family in Six Tones comes out 9/15. ⁣
⁣
“𝘔𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘣𝘦 𝘢 𝘴𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘨𝘭𝘰𝘣𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘐’𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘧𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘰𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦, 𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘢 𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘬𝘺.”⁣
⁣
“𝘖𝘶𝘳 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘺 𝘣𝘪𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘥𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘣𝘺 𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘯.”⁣
⁣
“𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘯: 𝘮𝘺 𝘧𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳, 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳, 𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘴, 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘮𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 “𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨”. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘎𝘰𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘉𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘦 𝘓𝘦𝘦.”⁣
⁣

A moving mother/daughter story. I appreciated the unconventional style of alternating chapters written by Lan and Harlan.

I expected to like this book as I have read countless memoirs and stories written by Vietnamese authors. I was unable to read past 3 chapters of this book because it was a more of a display of the author's trauma and problems with her daughter than a story that one could follow. It was hard as a reader to appreciate any details, as the narrative was very sad and from the beginning the way that the author describes her relationship with her daughter, as well as her daughter's birth is problematic and perplexing. In a sense, I felt like I was observing her talking to her therapist.