this was a really unique historical novel, I loved going on this journey with the characters and seeing what the conclusion was.

A well written and thoughtful book. Read a little more slowly than I anticipated but overall positive!

2.5 stars

This book was a difficult journey to get through ... In the beginning I was very much interested in the concept of two men finding their roots across time and countries; later on I became offended at various moments and ideas present in the narrative and than disappointed with the unbelievable way in which some characters acted. Finally, I guess only a pretty little bow can tie up this messy package.

Lets start with what I found promising in Mr. Glick novel:
-his writing style is easy and quite straightforward;
-the pace of the book was just right for the story it was telling;
-it is very much clear that the author lived in Vietnam and has intimate knowledge about the tribal people mentioned(especially after the 65% of the book - Rhade tribe);
-the abundant information on Seigon/Ho Chi Minh City (street names,reasons for changing those, historical landmarks, important buildings, events that took place in the city) .

As you can see, I didn't mention anything about the actual story in the list above...unfortunately, that is because Marc and JJ's stories have almost zero redeeming qualities about them.
We follow Marc, a lawyer in Honolulu, who finally decides to confront his father's death and his feelings about him by trying to find out who he was, and understand him better. JJ is a civil engineer in Australia, who wants to find out WHO is/was his father.
There is an enormous imbalance between those two when it comes to time spent with them on the page, and when it comes to character development. Although, the later wasn't good at all.
Marc is the focus of this novel, and I felt that JJ was used for the last twist in the end...I didn't appreciate that, especially when it could have been a complex study of two completely different men in culture, approach to Vietnam, ties to it(because having an american father is soo much different than JJ's situation) and experience with racism (from both sides).
As it is, the author is trying to sell JJ as the worst of the two in perspective, personality and overall luck! Ridiculous!!!
Lets ignore that we never find out why Marc's relationship with his father has failed when the later was alive. Also lets ignore the disgusting way in which the main character practically strives to recreate the exact pieces he knows from the life of the deceased and then impose himself as if he is both ... >..>... my question is...WHY and HOW everyone around him offers help without a single suspicion, second thought, AND no real believable reason to have a connection with Marc's father (I mean Phung , the driver, conveniently was the nephew of Mr. Nam, who was both in the same social cercle AND was influencial enough to constantly help and coddle Marc from the moment he met him until the end of the book...>..>....give me a break!). And if this is the song we're singing, why not offer the same luck to JJ??? Yes he also got connection in an unbelivable way, but not as fantastical as Marc.
Coming back to Marc, the way in which he feels and acts...man I wish I'd meet someone like that. Because I sincerly doubt that such a person exists. First of all, why search in such a roundabout way? Who starts with random places instead of people?? It's not like he didn't have info...>..>..
Next thing: why on earth is he sooo moved by everything? The connection with the tribe and fate/ Yang Rong is not enough to explain the exageration in his behavior and is not even close to backup his decisions after finding that out...And once again..everyone in this book accepts and understand completely(like that is even possible) why he changed, why he decides to do in the future and has no problems taking him seriously (after all is not like this is a matter of extreme prejudice, easily influenced by small things like..I don't know...racism,modern way of thinking and past history with the character..>...>).

Don't get me started on the way in which Vietnamese women are described! It's like they have just one role...and everybody knows which one I'm talking about! Horrible, offensive and mysoginistic! This is my opinion!

Another thing that drove me nuts while reading certain descriptions and monologue from character's perspectives: the fact that a French Colony/American rule is better than current Vietnam...I'm sorry, but this is strictly YOUR OPINION. Don't dare speak for a nation who was always exploited by a "benefactor". There is a reason why people demanded America's army to get the hell out of Vietnam!!! If you were priviledged in that period ,that is because you were on the ruling side. Nothing more. I don't even want to think how many tribal people and Vietnamese in general died for "justice" fighting their own brothers.

So yes, coming back to the plot, I'm sorry to say it needed to be less meandering and more grounded in reality.The characters needed more than one trait and one role, and some actual input to the story, instead of being yes-men.

Taking all of the above into consideration, I cannot recomend this book. :(

Finding Father is about two men looking for something,one is American one is Austrian. Follow these two to Vietnam will they find what they are searching for. The description of the country and people made me feel like I was right there. The characters are so believable. Take some tissues with you,I needed them, Peter Glick,the author, you can do tell a lot of research went into this story and I like that when that's done,it's really hard work to do this,time consuming and the author should get credit for that alone. Received from Net Gallery and read this story I really think you will like it!

I was looking forward to Finding Father by Peter S. Glick as I'm fascinated by Asia,the various cultures,the history and the people. Having already read a couple of excellent books set in the country the publisher's description had me expecting great things.
Basically the book is about 2 men from different parts of the world, Marc whose American Father spent a lot of time in Vietnam, where he met his mother, and JJ,an Australian with a Vietnamese mother who would never tell him who his father was. The 2 men's fates collide in somewhat unbelievable circumstances.

The book starts off promisingly with Marc travelling to Vietnam from his home in Hawaii after his father dies. They had a strained relationship but his late Dad's journals inspire Marc to discover more about the man and the place he loved. There's plenty of history and some very informative descriptions of Vietnam and it's culture so I was initially gripped but sadly,for me at least,it all started to unravel and get more than a little surreal. JJ arrives from Australia in an attempt to discover who his father is and the 2 men's paths cross,he's rather an unpleasant character and a bit of a stereotype bolshy Aussie.

While there's plenty to like here, the snippets of information thrown in and the in-depth look into Montagnard culture the book is also quite flawed. It's very much Vietnam from an American perspective where every Vietnamese in the book looks back to the old colonial days with fondness ,no mention of the appalling behaviour of the French or atrocities perpetrated by the Americans in the war they started while casting doubt on the "version of the truth told by the Communists". A lot of the things the author,via Marc,lays at the feet of the Vietnamese government is replicated in America and elsewhere and his political biases taint the story,which is a shame. A bit much someone deriding another country's veracity and allegedly flawed educational system to claim as fact that Robert Louis Stevenson was American! I did wonder if there was maybe more than one but 2 characters specifically state that they're talking about the author of Treasure Island. There are also some rather unfortunate attitudes towards women on display.

After a promising beginning it's a bit of a mess, for a much better,and far more accurate,insight into a fascinating country and its history I'd recommend Anthony Grey's epic,Saigon.
Sorry but while this is very good in parts it really didn't work for me.

A deeply moving and dazzling story about two men in search of the life their father led in Vietnam during the war waged between the communist North and the US-backed South. Marc, the American lawyer who has spent more than 30 years of his life in Hawaii, retraces his father footsteps in Vietnam after reading the journals left by his father soon after his death to discover the father that he didn’t know about until then. JJ, the Australian guy decides to embark on a journey to Vietnam soon after his mother’s death, without any knowledge of the identity or the whereabouts of his father. Both guys will then discover something disturbing, yet liberating on their journeys to discover their father.

We are dropping slowly, preparing to land in Ho Chi Minh City. My father could never call it that. To him it was always Saigon. Unaccountably, I too cannot think of it as anything other than Saigon. (p. 45)

The journey begins in Ho Chi Minh City. Saigon will always be Saigon, even after fifty years have passed, that might be the case for the veterans of the war who returned to the city to discover that time itself never completely erased the place where it once was. Even after the communist regime soon renamed the city after the liberation of Saigon in 1975, along with street names and places, a city will always stay in our heart as we remembered it then. There is something definite in that, although our lives could be said as something dictated by circumstances and serendipities as we try to understand it backwards.

This novel gives me a feeling of reading something between fictional work and memoir. So many things in this story could be traced back into the author’s experience of working for 10 years in Vietnam as an official from the American Chamber of Commerce in Saigon during the war. One could see someone who is really fond of Vietnam, its people, its land and its tradition in this book. And it goes without saying that there is some beauty in Vietnam that keeps making people coming back from time to time, especially those who have spent a considerable amount of their lives in that S-shaped country.

Ernest Hemingway once said: “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” But I’ll have to agree with the author that Vietnam is our moveable feast. To me, Hué, a small city which is the former imperial capital of the Nguyen Dynasty is the place which stays as my moveable feast. To the author, it is in the South with Saigon and the highlands near Banmethuot with the relations that he has with the Montagnards.

Beyond nostalgic feelings, this author is also keen on addressing the issue of how Vietnam treat its minorities who live in the highlands. The Rhadé people, one of the minorities living in the highlands near Banmethuot is a key issue in this book that the author wants to highlight. The indigenous people are disappearing as a result of assimilation into Vietnamese culture in the past few decades. In Banmethuot alone, the percentage of the tribal Montagnards decreased from 30% during the wartime into 15% at the present moment, as compared to the Kinh majority. The author also points out different treatments that the Montagnards received from the time of the French colonial era, the South Vietnamese regime, and then the post-1975 communist rule.

Readers will find this book interesting, especially if they have lived in Vietnam for a considerable amount of time. There are a lot of historical facts to learn from this book, that is not included in history books. And much more so, it’s also a nice study of comparison between Saigon during wartime and the Ho Chi Minh City of the present moment.