There is no stone left unturned in The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse; Vinh Nguyen has a profound ability to reach into the depths of memory and pluck out the smallest of details, weaving them into beautiful prose and breathing life into every scene. This memoir is a tender reflection on home, family, and self, seen through the lens of time and history. While I appreciated Nguyen's daring experimentation with non-linear storytelling - both with personal and global histories - I struggled with the memoir's lack of a temporal anchor. Nguyen does an excellent job at crafting vibrant scenes, truly placing the reader into a memory, but without global history to underscore these moments, I felt often adrift on the timeline. Memories tend to transition into one another without much recognition and they blend together on the page, making it difficult as a reader to understand where we are and to process what I am reading. The scenes where Nguyen draws upon global history to underscore personal history are strongest: a rich weaving of the history narrative we have come to understand through textbooks and the personal narrative that is so often neglected.

Ultimately, I do not plan to add this book to my curriculum. I find that a hazy timeline can be a challenging introduction to the concept of non-linear storytelling for students. However, I see The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse as a masterclass in translating memory to the page and would eagerly recommend it to students on an individual basis.