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Content snapshot
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Violence
Very heavy
Extreme violence including detailed torture sequences; a brutal interrogation scene in the climax; war violence throughout
Language
A lot
Strong language throughout
Sexual Content
A lot
Explicit sexual content in multiple sections
Substance Use
Some
Some substance use
Emotional Intensity
Very heavy
The extreme psychological cost of living as a double agent; the torture sequences in the climax are among the most disturbing in contemporary American fiction
What this book is about
The narrator is a communist spy and captain in the South Vietnamese army who flees with his general to Los Angeles after the fall of Saigon. Writing his confession to a Commissar, he describes his years as a double agent, his time in LA's Vietnamese exile community, his work on a Hollywood Vietnam War film, and finally his return to Vietnam and what awaits him there. Nguyen's Pulitzer Prize winner is caustic, brilliant, and relentlessly honest about the violence committed by all sides—American, Vietnamese, communist, capitalist.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Detailed torture sequences in the climax
Extreme war violence from multiple perspectives
Explicit sexual content throughout
Reader Verification
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