Short Girls

This is a great book. It takes me back to my high school days. Back in 1986, the prettiest girl in the school was Van from Vietnam. I recall talking to a classmate about Van and we talked about dating and I remember him telling me that she would never date outside her race. Her family was very strict about that. She had a sister that she was really close just like Van and Linny. In 1991 while working at the Home Shopping Network, I met two sisters named Amy and Diane Nguyen. One dated only Asian guys the other dated White guys which was somewhat rare in 1991. Now in 2009, I went to the movies at Westshore mall in Tampa and most of the couples I saw were Asian girls with White guys. It took maybe 20-years but eventually people get out of their own little boxes and reach out. It interesting that all the Vietnamese girls I met had sisters they were close to just like in Short Girls. To me this book is like a look at how my past friends lives pretty were. They spoke little about their home lives so this book was like looking through a house window for a peek at what went on inside. Ok I realize that is a long introduction but hopefully it shades a little light on how I view Short Girls. First, I love the character Van because she is hardworking, likes to read, ignores her appearance, to an extent, in order to develop her mind. She is the noble character with a big heart who has a hard time trying to succeed. Then there's her sister Linny, who is outgoing, isn't afraid to expertiment with dating outside her race, fearless, able to drift from one job to the next without coming across as a hapless loser. I admire people like Linny because I'm afraid of that kind of job hopping. The sisters belong to a bigger family unit in the Luong family. The father is the wacky inventor who hides away from society in his basement lab working on things that are laughed at by some and admired by others. The mother is hardworking who manages to keep the family going by providing a much needed income. The Luong family is typical of a Vietnamese family in some ways and vastly different in others. The Luongs are a wonderfully created paradox that goes along with the paradox of the father and his inventions that either work or not depending on how you look at it. The story has moments of humor and the normal pains of everyday life that make it universal. It also contains differences from cultural, economical, and height perspectives that taken together create a unique look at immigration in the US. Van, the hardworking lawyer is going through a difficult time with her husband Miles. She did everything right like exceling in school, getting into law school, and finding a good job with immigration. Yet no matter how hard she tries things don't go her way or seem to work out at all. Then you have Linny, caught up in an affair with a married man, working as a low salaried cook for ready made family dinners. She needs to stop the affair but that's not likely to happen easily fo

Bich Minh Nguyen's second book, Short Girls, is a superbly written story of family relations and obligation that explores the dichotomy between two sisters, Linny and Van, who are polar opposites, yet disarmingly similar at the same time. Both sisters struggle with the various relationships in their lives and both maintain a certain level of insecurity rooted in their shared childhood experiences. The author does an excellent job of letting the reader into the lives of her characters: I feel as if I know exactly how the sisters look, what their homes and workplaces look like, and even how they might behave in certain situations, all due to Nguyen's expertly rendered (but never overwrought or over-done) prose. The underlying current of the story centers on the sister's helpless father, Dinh Luong, and his ongoing struggle to assimilate into the culture of the country he emigrated to almost 30 years earlier from Viet Nam. The story is enveloping as it explores situations many of us have experienced - marital problems, family discord, cultural assimilation and identity, the search for one's place in life - through the eyes of pretty, ne'er do well Linny and studious, conscientious Van. Both Linny and Van grow as the story progresses and each are able to achieve a measure of security and purpose as they learn to use the relationships and live experiences to help them live fuller, happier lives.

This is a very well-written story about families, the immigrant experience, and the process of coming to terms with our most authentic selves in the crucible of the life we find ourselves leading. What makes the book especially powerful is the use of two clear viewpoints, casting light on one another in an endless dance of perception. Just as two-point perspective in a drawing really makes the objects in the image pop out at the viewer, so the two perspectives from voices so similar and yet so individual, intensify the images and the story. Highly recommended.

My brother volunteers as a Vietnamese translator. I've been fortunately enough to meet some of the amazing strong and compassionate people he works with. As I read this book, I saw a lot of their faces and thought about their stories. Being a first generation anything can be tough. Trying to span one foot in two worlds. I thought that Nguyen's novel did an amazing job of showing how the line between family, friends and cultures is sometimes a hard line to walk.