When it was revealed Nguyễn was releasing her second novel in 2023, it quickly became one of my most anticipated reads of the year.

Dust Child alternates between the past (1969) and the present (2016), told from 3 different perspectives. Trang and Quỳnh—sisters who moved to Sài Gòn to become "bar girls" for American GIs, Phong—an orphaned son, eager to find his American father in hopes of a better life, and Dan—an American GI who returns to Vietnam after the war to confront his painful past.

This novel is a fantastic example of what a beautifully crafted and well-researched novel looks like and is also proof of how incredible of a storyteller Nguyễn is. Just like in her first novel, The Mountains Sing, Nguyễn does an impressive job of transporting her readers to Vietnam—weaving together history, culture, language and proverbs into the narrative; and propelling us to understand the impact of the war and the long-lasting effects it has for generations. It opened my eyes to a part of Vietnam's history that I didn't know before about Amerasian children who are shunned and ostracized from society simply for existing.

The characters were written with immense compassion, empathy and courage; demonstrating the strength, hope and forgiveness of people from both sides during a period that was steeped in tragedy, pain and trauma. I quickly grew a love for Trang and Quỳnh, cheered Phong on, and learned to empathize with Dan. Dan's pov wasn't one I enjoyed, but one I came to understand why it was necessary to include. It was an honest look into how war hurts everyone, and no one leaves war unscathed.

This is a powerful, heartbreaking yet moving story that highlights the emotional complexities of trauma; validating and giving space to the real stories and people who inspired this novel. Nguyễn provides an important voice in literature; shedding light on parts of Vietnam's history that gets erased. Thank you so much @algonquinbooks and @nguyenphanquemai_ for including me in this book tour and for the e-ARC. Dust Child is officially out! PLEASE go pick this one up

4.5/5

After reading 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐠, I knew I would need to read whatever @nguyenphanquemai_ writes. I finished this book last week and I’m still struggling to put into words how beautifully written and powerful this book is.

Short Review -

📌A heartbreaking tale about the children born of relationships between American soldiers and Vietnamese women during the war in Vietnam.
📌A tale of two sisters during the Vietnam war in 1969.
📌A tale which flowed between two timelines (during the Vietnam war and 40 years later)
📌The book will leave you thinking not only from the sadness that the characters endure, but from the love that can come out of that tragedy and sadness.

@nguyenphanquemai_ is an incredible storyteller. Dust Child will absolutely be among my favourite this year!

MASTER STORYTELLER! If you loved her first book, The Mountains Sing, you will be equally impressed and astounded by Dust Child. Queen Mai Phan Nguyen has the skills to transport you to another time, another place and pull you into the stories she is telling.

I didn’t know much about the Vietnam War and it’s impact the soldiers had on the daily lives of the Vietnamese women. This story is both heartbreaking and uplifting. Its rich in its reflection of family ties, first loves, and friendships. It’s dark in its exposure of economic hardship, brothels, and untimely deaths.

I highly recommend this book!

4.5 stars!

"For a reader like him, burning books was an incomprehensible act, and most people who didn’t even read would fight for the right to open any book they chose. Those in power feared free minds, and nothing unlocked thinking like literature."

At one point in the story, one of the main characters thinks this, after a particularly harrowing conversation that brings home revelations to him. I wondered about how he was able to call burning books an incomprehensible act (which it is). And I wondered how the act of war is never deemed incomprehensible, gruesome, gory, and violent as it is. It’s an interesting overlap, a study in human nature itself, this book, in addition to exploring how wartime changes people in incomprehensible ways. There’s that word again: incomprehensible. But it is apt, isn’t it?

Dust Child is the epithet given to the children of American soldiers and Vietnamese women conceived during the war. It’s not a flattering one, used most often derogatorily, and shows how society can be biased against the unknown. Society doesn’t stop to think about circumstances, or about how war festers like a rot within the very fabric of humanity. Even so, how does it decide who gets to be a part of humanity and who does not?

In this book, we follow an Amerasian son trying to find his family in 2016, a war veteran returning to Vietnam in 2016 with his wife to confront his demons and what only he knows is the truth, and a love story taking place in 1969-70. These three tracks are equally immersive, each making you think and each making you want to find out whether the characters found what they were looking for. All of them have unlikeable streaks to them, but desperation and despair will have you doing things out of your knee in order to find the truth. These characters are proof of that. And these stories will have you examining everything you know about people and the extent to which they can and will go, most of it unsavory at best.

Every one of Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s books makes me want to go up to her and embrace her, for writing strong, inspirational women, for being one, and for bringing so much light and love into the world. You’d think it was impossible to do it while writing the story of a ravaged people and war. But the author proves otherwise. And for that and more, I respect her so, so much!

All I’m saying is: If you say you want to read it, don’t just say it. READ IT!

This novel is a masterpiece.

The best books, like this one, make me feel like I’ve lived in another life and time.

After I started Dust Child on a weekend, this novel made me want to blow off my entire work week to finish it.

Told from the perspective, during the Vietnam war of Trang and Quỳnh, two Vietnamese sisters who move from their family rice fields to Saigon, Phong—the son of a Black American soldier and a Vietnamese woman, and decades later, Dan, an American GI returning to the Việt Nam for the first time.

The interwoven narratives were skillfully done and kept me entranced, and surprised until the very end of the book.

Thought-provoking, inspiring, heart-breaking, hopeful, unforgettable. Everyone who wants to understand and emphasize with the impact of war in real lives should read this novel.

Who has two thumbs and marked her book tour date down for the wrong Tuesday? That would be me 🙈 so this is a little late, but I’m still excited to share Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai.

“She had tried to live an honest life, but the war had given her no choice.”

This book follows multiple timelines and POVs. We have Trang and Quỳnh who become bar girls meant to entertain American GIs to pay off family debts. There’s Dan, one of the helicopter pilots who returns to Việt Nam with his wife, searching for his past girlfriend and child. And lastly, Phong, an orphaned son of a Black American soldier and a Vietnamese woman.

This was such an emotive story and it kept me captivated until the end. Phong’s journey from an orphaned war child to an adult searching for identity in the form of his familial ties struck a tender spot within me. It was heartbreaking to see him treated as an enemy by his own country.

“He wandered to Sài Gòn and became a bụi đời, the dust of life. He hated the term, for it referred to all homeless people, as if to erase them of their own identities.”

Trang’s journey was just as heart-wrenching. She was constantly working to build a better life for herself and her family. Dan was a nuanced character. I felt for him and his trauma but I hated the way he treated Kim and Linda. At times, I despised the decisions he made and it made it hard for me to like him, though I understand to a degree why he was the way he was. I don’t think it was all fully acceptable, but I don’t think the author wants us to gloss over the wrongdoings in this book.

I don’t want to spoil too much of this book because it’s better if you experience it without too much insight beyond how our characters relate to the book. Our author writes poignantly and openly. Her words as beautiful and haunting. I highly recommend Dust Child if you’re looking for a good historical fiction novel. Thanks to @algonquinbooks and @nguyenphanquemai_ for having me!

Wow! The Mountains Sing was easily one of the best books I read in 2019. I didn’t know that the author could capture that same magic in her second book. Well, she didn’t. She SURPASSED IT! Wow wow wow! This book was amazing. It’s a sweeping saga across decades, generations, and continents. This books does the two that, for me, great books should do: 1) makes me feel something and 2) teaches me something. This book exposes the long-lasting wounds of war and caused me to recognize that war doesn’t just ravage those in combat and their immediate families. Business people, civilians, unborn babies are all affected. I teared up while reading each of the last four chapters. The author’s skill at creating such beautiful, moving work is unparalleled.

"... we are just water hyacinth plants floating on a river. Don't let the current pull you down. Protect yourself because no one else can."

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Dust Child tells us the impact of the Vietnam war on several generations of people. We see the impact on two young poor sisters during the war, an American GI stationed there during the war and a child born of a local and an American soldier. We learn the harshness of life during the war and after both on the regular people and those who were fighting. But the more resonant and impactful messaging was about how poorly the locals were treated and the depth of the aftermath left in the most unexpected ways.

I learned a ton with this novel about the abandoned children of American soldiers. I personally never thought about the heartache and wanting this could bring. Nor did I ever think about how ostracized those children would be. I was definitely invested in these characters from page one and was surprised how the story ended up, it was not what I expected going in. Multiple POV made it compelling, each time a scene would end I'd be dying to flip to see how they ended up.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for the gifted copy. All opinions above are my own.

📚 Dust Child by Nguyen Phan Que Mai 📚


Thank you @algonquinbooks and @nguyenphanquemai_ for the advance copy and the opportunity to read Dust Child before its publication date. I knew it would be a great read and I was not disappointed. I finished the book the night before I went to hear the author speak at the Central Library in Seattle.

Dust Child is the new novel by the same author of The Mountains Sing, which I also loved. The story is very compelling and based on true issues arising from the Vietnam War (or the American War, as it's called in Vietnam). There were possibly over a million children born to American soldiers and Vietnamese women during/ right after the war, and their fates were extremely hard. Dr. Que Mai took years of research and volunteer hours helping interpret when a parent found their child after 40 years or vice versa, and wrote a powerful fictional story in English about these issues. As she said at the library in Seattle, her goal is to bring people together, and her writing highlights the pain and loss of war, and how it affects everyone involved, no matter which "side" they are on. She is also a talented poet, and you can tell when you read her novels. The writing is wonderful - beautiful but not over the top. These are both books that I always recommend!

gripping and suspenseful novel, Dust Child is a searing look at the effects of the Viêt Nam war across the globe and generations. Told from three different perspectives and timelines, readers are quick to realize that past will eventually meet present and what unfolds along the way will break and heal your heart.

Point blank: Dust Child is stunning. Nguyen Phan Quê Mai became an auto-buy author for me with The Mountains Sing and her second novel is no different.

Mai's ability to transport a reader through time and space is unmatched. When she sets a scene, you are there, hands down. Her characters are so beautifully formed and I felt the immense hurt of each one.
Phong's search for his birth parents was especially touching and while I knew about the Amerasian children often left behind and unclaimed by their GI fathers, I hadn't done much research on them. This book has changed that.

I think we owe a great debt of gratitude to Nguyên Phan Que Mai for writing about Viêt Nam, the war and the people involved. She has taught me more than American history ever has or will.

Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai is such a master storyteller. I first read THE MOUNTAINS SING in 2021 and was blown away by how effortlessly she wove together the generational/family stories over time. Thus, I was over the moon when NetGalley and Algonquin Books gave me the opportunity to read and review an e-ARC of DUST CHILD.

DUST CHILD is such an ambitious and well-executed sophomore novel that tells of the aftermath of the Vietnam War (though, of course, the Vietnamese do not refer to the war as such) through different points of view. Nguyễn has absolutely done it again. She has a serious talent for interweaving narratives across time and characters, and everything comes together so beautifully. Your heart will break and soar for all parties throughout the read. I loved how DUST CHILD deals with not only the challenges the Vietnamese and war veterans faced but also the Amerasians who were left behind by American soldiers and abandoned by their Vietnamese mothers. Everything is clearly thoroughly researched, and the representation feels authentic/true/plausible. I also loved the thematic exploration of truth and the lies we tell and why.

I still can't believe that Nguyễn is the first Vietnamese person to publish literature about the war in English. I cannot wait to get this text (and/or THE MOUNTAINS SING) included in curriculum or assigned as summer reading. Everyone needs to read these. It's time to retire O'Brien's THE THINGS THEY CARRIED as the definitive fiction text about the Vietnam War. In the meantime, I'll be waiting for Nguyễn's next book.

Mai Nguyễn dives further into the war in Việt Nam and the future of those that lived through it in her second novel, Dust Child. Told through multiple POVs and over the course of more than 50 years, this story is a heartbreaking look at the long term effects of war.

Recommended for: historical fiction readers

Content warning: war, death, child abandonment

I received a digital ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Dust Child tells a story that spans years from the Vietnam War to present day. The story is told from alternating perspectives- two Vietnamese sisters, an Amerasian (a person who was born with a father who was an American soldier) orphan, and a soldier from the United States.

This is a sweeping story and I loved learning both the history of what it was like to be in Vietnam during the war, as well as what it is like in Vietnam today. This story explores themes of discrimination, class, and family,

I really enjoyed this historical fiction. I felt like I spent my nights in Vietnam through the writing and I recommend this book to anyone who loves historical fiction and loves to learn new things about other cultures and experiences.

Dust Child is the delicately crafted historical fiction novel by internationally bestselling author Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai. My first experience reading the author, I felt as though I was transported to 1969 Việt Nam. Heartbreaking and honest, it was evident to me throughout the book that this story must have been inspired by real people, so I wasn’t surprised when it was confirmed in the author’s note. Ultimately, it’s a powerful story about acceptance, healing, and forgiveness.

While the book is told from multiple points of view, the story is primarily told from three characters:

Trang, along with her younger sister Quỳnh, are young Vietnamese women living in 1969, determined to help their parents struggling under medical bills and debtors. When a friend returns from Sài Gòn with tales of easy money as a “bar girl”, spending time drinking and talking with American GIs, the sisters decide to leave their rural village for the city.

In 2016, we meet Phong, an Amerasian, the son of a Vietnamese woman and a Black American GI, who grew up as an orphan without ever knowing his parents. He’s in Sài Gòn with his wife and children hoping to discover the identity of his parents and a way for his family to reach America. Labeled bụi đời, the “dust of life,” by the Vietnamese, he’s been discriminated against and mistreated all his life. Throughout his tale, the reader gets flashbacks into his childhood and early life.

Dan is an American Vietnam vet who has arrived back in Sài Gòn with his wife, Linda. They’re hoping a visit to the past will help him heal from his PTSD, but he’s been keeping a secret from Linda for over forty years. When he left Sài Gòn, he left behind a Vietnamese girlfriend, Kim, who was pregnant with his child.

In the beginning, I had little sympathy for Dan—and even Linda. Which is probably kind of the point, but the author does such a good job of making them human, illustrating how war is bad for everyone, that I couldn’t help but hope they found the answers they were looking for.

Nguyễn successfully depicts how suffering and hurt people can hurt others. It’s no excuse, but it helps to wrap our brains around some of the atrocities of war—how humans can be so unkind, and it’s a reminder that we should never just blindly follow the lead of others, although we often do.

I was also impressed with how the author used the briefest side characters to bring such an impact to the story and the lives of our main characters. It’s also a great technique to keep the reader in suspense, always wondering who or what might be revealed next.

Towards the end of the book, I was a little unsatisfied with how it was wrapping up—until there was a small twist that had a big impact on the story. The result made so much more sense than the direction I thought it was going in before. It firmly kept this story at five stars for me.

The world needs more stories like Dust Child. Maybe if we were all required to read them, there would be less hate and more acceptance. Beautifully done, it’s a book I’ll be recommending again and again.

A huge thanks to Net Galley and Algonquin Books for a physical copy and e-bo0k copy of this beautiful book.

Trang and her younger sister Quynh live in a small farming village helping their parents with their rice farm. With the Vietnam War and hard financial times, the sisters decide to leave their parents to work as "bar girls" in Sai Gon to help their family with finances. Money is not earned easily as bar girls (prostitutes). Trang meets an American GI named Dan who is different from the others. They develop a friendship first and then a romance follows.

Dan begins fighting the demons of war (PTSD) that so many Vietnam Vets suffered which caused problems in their relationship before he finishes his service in Vietnam and heads home. But not before finding out Trang is pregnant.

Phong is an Amerasian whose mother is Vietnamese and father is a black American GI. He grows up in an orphanage with a very difficult life after leaving there. He is searching for his father through DNA tests to try to immigrate to America.

So many lives ruined by this war, both Vietnamese and American, but many are seeking to find answers and healing long after the war.

This book is so well written from all three viewpoints and a powerful story that should be read. I highly recommend it.

Dust Child by @nguyenphanquemai_ is the story of sisters, Trang and Quỳnh, who leave their village to become bar girls in Sài Gòn in order to help their parents pay off their debts. Trang gets swept up in a romance with an American helicopter pilot who returns decades later to try and heal from his PTSD and unknowingly confront secrets from his past.

There’s a line in the book that says “nothing unlocked thinking like literature” and this book does just that. This labour of love by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai is an absolute must read! Heartbreaking, powerful and poetic, Quế Mai shines a light on a dark legacy of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War - “the dust of life”, Amerasian children born to Vietnamese women by American soldiers and the complex, layered trauma that came from such circumstances.

Quế Mai’s beautiful and well-researched storytelling had me captivated equally across all three storylines and, although a story of war, I was also quite taken with the tenacious spirit of the Vietnamese people and the beauty of the Vietnamese landscape and culture that she shared.

I recommend this for anyone who likes generational sagas, beautiful storytelling with an emotional gut punch, and those who enjoy wartime historical fiction but would like to switch it up from WWII stories.

Deepest gratitude to the author and @algonquinbooks for sharing an advanced copy of this very special book with me 💕

Dust Child is a moving and clearly very well-researched novel about many aftereffects of the Vietnam war: PTSD, complex social issues, and Amerasian children left behind when their G.I. fathers returned to the U.S.

The beauty of Dust Child is its nuance. Every decision comes with unintended consequences, and the pain that radiates from each character informs their choices. With compassion and care, Nguyễn breathes life into characters from all sides of the war.

I found myself especially invested in the stories of Trang and Quỳnh, sisters who started working at a brothel to support their indebted parents.

Nguyễn does not sugarcoat the difficult subject matter; nor does she linger unnecessarily in pain. All the trauma in Dust Child comes from real experiences, and characters interrogate the racism, sexism, and violence on the page.

The reality of the Vietnam war was ugly, and the generational effects are still reverberating globally. How many families were torn apart by death? How many children were given up for adoption? How many women were abandoned by soldiers who promised them the world?

Nguyễn has spent a lot of time working to reunite parents and children, and her passion for the people involved comes through clearly. This is a deeply loving novel, as pain-filled as it is.

I can only hope that some people who are searching for healing will get their hands on Dust Child. It’s a tough, but worthwhile read.

Thanks to @algonquinbooks for the review copy!

In this novel, the issue of those children born of Vietnamese mothers and American soldiers during the Vietnam war is explored. Most of these children were left behind by the soldiers some of whom never knew they had a child. Others were born of one night stands when women working in bars to keep their families afloat became pregnant, often without knowing who the father was. These children were often abandoned by their mothers as well, left at orphanages or just deserted to make their way on the streets. They were called 'dust child' as their survival was as tenuous as dust and their relationship to any family the same.

Dan and his wife Linda have come back to Vietnam forty years after he was there as a young man. Although he and Linda had been engaged, Dan was so lonely and distraught while there that he formed a relationship with Kim, a bar girl who fell in love with him. He paid for an apartment for her but when she told him they were going to have a baby, he went ahead and returned to the United States after his service without seeing her again. Now he has come back and he knows he must tell Linda about that time and try to find Kim and his child.

Phong is one of the dust children. He was left as a baby in a sling up in a tree outside the orphanage. Raised by a nun there, he was forced out on his own at twelve when she died. Phong was the child of an African-American soldier and a Vietnamese mother. He now has his own wife and children and has tried several times to get papers to go to America and try to find his father. He meets Dan and Linda and they try to help each other.

This is a heartbreaking book that explores a topic that has been ignored too long. Children are often the longest lasting victims of war and that is definitely the case for these children who were often denied any education or training that allowed them to make a living. American soldiers were often left with guilt and secrets they felt they could never share. Although a real problem, it is often a hidden one and readers will be exposed to sadness they never knew existed. This book is recommended to readers interested in other cultures and in family stories.

READ IF YOU LIKE...
• Richly portrayed historical fiction
• Studying the ravages and effects of war
• Discovering the strength of family

I THOUGHT IT WAS...
A heart wrenching, eye-opening story that shows the intimate, complicated legacies of the Vietnam War. Phong is a Black Vietnamese man, trying to get a visa to America under the Amerasian Homecoming Act. Dan is a Vietnam War vet, making a return trip with his wife in the hopes that it'll help him heal and confront ghosts. Trang and Quynh are two young sisters during the war, working at a bar in Saigon to help their parents repay their debts. We explore the intricate ties between them, formed while everyone just tries to survive.

There are many ways you can learn about the Vietnam War and its aftermath. This novel focuses on the impact it had on interpersonal connections and families across multiple generations. It also approaches it from fascinating perspectives -- the Vietnamese who struggled to survive it, the American soldiers brought over to fight in it, and the children that resulted from the liaisons between servicemen and Vietnamese women.

It's not easy being with these characters. At times, they are stubborn, selfish, dishonest, and naive. But the times when I felt frustration also made it feel real. Real people are these things. We don't always have good judgment or make the right decisions in moments of uncertainty, grief, love, or pain. It underscores how deep the wounds of that war truly went, cutting right to the heart of thousands of Amerasian identities. I'm so glad Nguyen has worked hard to elevate and amplify their stories, and the stories of their complicated families, with such care and respect.

✨Dust Child✨

Wow, oh wow, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai is an incredible storyteller. The Mountains Sing quickly became a favorite of mine when I read it last year, and Dust Child will absolutely be a favorite of mine this year!

Dust Child seamlessly intertwines the stories of Trang and Quỳnh (sisters who become bar girls in Sài Gòn during the Vietnam war), Dan (an American veteran who returns to Vietnam with his wife nearly 40 years after the war), and Phong (an Amerasian, who is trying to find his parents after being left at an orphanage as a baby).

I devoured this story - I couldn’t read fast enough, yet didn’t want it to end! The characters felt so real - their stories will stick with me for a long time. I didn’t know about the tens of thousands of Amerasians (one American parent, one Vietnamese parent) that were born out of the war and how horribly they were treated, being referred to as “children of the dust” and completely ostracized. Similar to The Mountains Sing, Dust Child opened my eyes to so much of the pain, fear, and trauma the Vietnamese (women especially) experienced during and after the Vietnam War. It was powerful the way Quế Mai portrayed the trauma of the war from both sides - she really encapsulated what the poet Nguyen Duy wrote: “At the end of each war, whoever wins, the people lose.” This year marks fifty years since the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam, yet there’s so much still to learn.

While used in a different context in the story, this quote felt very relevant to America right now: “Those in power feared free minds, and nothing unlocked thinking like literature.”

Dust Child is out tomorrow (3/14) and I highly, highly recommend picking up a copy! Thank you @nguyen & @algonquin for the eARC of Dust Child ❤️ I can’t wait to grab a physical copy for my collection!