Beth Nguyen’s second memoir is more of a collection of essays rather than a straightforward personal memoir. I’ve read my share of books by Vietnamese diaspora writers. However, Owner of a Lonely Heart was a portrayal of a Vietnamese American that differed from what I’ve encountered before. This may be due to the fact that Beth and her sister were born in Vietnam and came to the USA in the 1970s as refugees, along with their father and grandmother. Therefore, this book is more of a meditation and reflection on motherhood and daughterhood and how the Vietnam War, through violence, familial separation and, of course, intergenerational trauma, has long-lasting consequences for both...

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In 1975, after the fall of Saigon, Beth Nguyen flees with her father, uncles, grandmother, and sister. She’s a baby, and will spend the rest of her life grappling with being a refugee and having no memory of it. And she will also not see her mother for the next nineteen years, because her mother is left behind in Vietnam.

This is the third memoir I’ve read of Nguyen’s, and her most masterful and vulnerable. Exploring her complicated relationship with the idea of parents, the fact she’s never spent 24 hours with her mother, and the many layered issues and traumas of being a refugee and being Vietnamese in a majority white, Midwestern town, Owner of a Lonely Heart is a thoughtful, open memoir about belonging. About family. And about claiming yourself. I also really enjoyed the twists of memory, the correcting and adding, and the arguments Nguyen portrays as she explores her history.