Owner of a Lonely Heart : : a Memoir

Locations
Call Number: Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / Literary / Nguyen, Beth, 921 Nguyen, Beth
On Shelf At: Malletts Creek Branch, Pittsfield Branch, Traverwood Branch, Westgate Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / Literary / Nguyen, Beth	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / Literary / Nguyen, Beth	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / Literary / Nguyen, Beth	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Nonfiction / Biography / Literary / Nguyen, Beth	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	921 Nguyen, Beth	4-week checkout	Due 05-21-2024

Twenty-four hours -- Apparent, part I -- Date of birth -- The photograph -- Apparent, part II -- Apparent, part III -- My mothers -- White mothers -- The story of my name -- Apparent, revisited.
"From the award-winning author of Stealing Buddha's Dinner, a powerful memoir of a mother-daughter relationship fragmented by war and resettlement. At the end of the Vietnam War, when Beth Nguyen was eight months old, she and her father, sister, grandmother, and uncles fled Saigon for America. Beth's mother stayed--or was left--behind, and they did not meet again until Beth was nineteen. Over the course of her adult life, she and her mother have spent less than twenty-four hours together. Owner of a Lonely Heart is a memoir about parenthood, absence, and the condition of being a refugee: the story of Beth's relationship with her mother. Framed by a handful of visits over the course of many years--sometimes brief, sometimes interrupted, sometimes with her mother alone and sometimes with her sister--Beth tells a coming-of-age story that spans her own Midwestern childhood, her first meeting with her mother, and becoming a parent herself. Vivid and illuminating, Owner of a Lonely Heart is a deeply personal story of family, connection, and belonging: as a daughter, a mother, and as a Vietnamese refugee in America"-- Provided by publisher.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Interesting but confusing submitted by 21621032124198 on April 20, 2024, 9:03am I found this memoir of an unusual childhood and upbringing to be very interesting, but I'm confused about the author's profound guilt and regret over her circumstances. The conditions of her childhood were not of her making, and yet she seems overwhelmed by unreal responsibility. I relate more to Nguyen's sister's views than the author's.