Author: Jennifer @ The Relentless Reader

First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung

~ Jennifer @ The Relentless Reader ~ 12 Comments

First They Killed My Father – A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung
Harper Collins/February 2000

Description:

From a childhood survivor of Cambodia’s brutal Pol Pot regime comes an unforgettable narrative of war crimes and desperate actions, the unnerving strength of a small girl and her family, and their triumph of spirit.

Until the age of five, Lounge Ung lived in Phnom Penh, one of seven children of a high-ranking government official. She was a precocious child who loved the open city markets, fried crickets, chicken fights, and sassing her parents. While her beautiful mother worried that Loung was a troublemaker — that she stomped around like a thirsty cow — her beloved father knew Lounge was a clever girl.

When Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge army stormed into Phnom Penh in April 1975, Ung’s family fled their home and moved from village to village to hide their identity, their education, their former life of privilege. Eventually, the family dispersed in order to survive.

Because Lounge was resilient and determined, she was trained as a child soldier in a work camp for orphans, while other siblings were sent to labor camps. As the Vietnamese penetrated Cambodia, destroying the Khmer Rouge, Loung and her surviving siblings were slowly reunited.

Bolstered by the shocking bravery of one brother, the vision of the others — and sustained by her sister’s gentle kindness amid brutality — Loung forged on to create for herself a courageous new life.

My Thoughts:
You may remember my review of In the Shadow of the Banyan a few weeks back. While reading Banyan I kept wishing that the author had written a memoir instead. Quixotic Magpie, a fellow blogger, suggested that I try First They Killed My Father.

This was exactly the kind of book I wanted to read about that time and place. It was brutal and unforgettable. It was awful but hopeful.

I knew it wouldn’t be an easy read but Ung’s love for her family, her honesty, her determination to make it through made this a story of redemption.

Ung tells the story in an honest and forthright matter without pulling any punches. I highly recommend this book.

Memorable Quotes:
“Kim tells me that from now on I have to watch out for myself. Not only am I never to talk to anyone about our former lives, but I’m never to trust anyone either. It is best if I just stop talking completely so I won’t unintentionally disclose information about our family. To talk is to bring danger to the family. At five years old, I am beginning to know what lonliness feels like, silent and alone and suspecting that everyone wants to hurt me.”

“I do not care why or how the Angkor plans to restore Cambodia. All I know is the constant pain of hunger in my stomach.”

“Nothing should be this beautiful. The gods are playing tricks on us. How could they be so cruel and still make the sky so lovely? I want to destroy all the beautiful things.”






Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

~ Jennifer @ The Relentless Reader ~ 22 Comments

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

Publication Date: March 2008
Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

Description:
In Jordan’s prize-winning debut, prejudice takes many forms, both subtle and brutal. It is 1946, and city-bred Laura McAllan is trying to raise her children on her husband’s Mississippi Delta farm–a place she finds foreign and frightening. In the midst of the family’s struggles, two young men return from the war to work the land. Jamie McAllan, Laura’s brother-in-law, is everything her husband is not–charming, handsome, and haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm, has come home with the shine of a war hero. But no matter his bravery in defense of his country, he is still considered less than a man in the Jim Crow South. It is the unlikely friendship of these brothers-in-arms that drives this powerful novel to its inexorable conclusion. 


The men and women of each family relate their versions of events and we are drawn into their lives as they become players in a tragedy on the grandest scale. As Kingsolver says of Hillary Jordan, “Her characters walked straight out of 1940s Mississippi and into the part of my brain where sympathy and anger and love reside, leaving my heart racing. They are with me still.”

My Thoughts:
I don’t know where I was or what I was doing in 2008 when this first came out because I missed the debut of this book. If I had known then what I know about it now I would have been the first to rip it off of the shelf and take it home.

What I Liked:
I enjoyed how there were different narrators telling the tale. Each of them have a great story to tell and each of them deserve to have their stories told. It wasn’t confusing at all because each character had a distinct voice. 

I loved to HATE Laura’s father-in-law. Wow, what a first class jerk. 

This book made me think about how far we’ve come since the 1940’s…and of how far we have yet to go. 

What I Didn’t Like:
I can’t say that the ending of this book is bad, just that there was a bit of ambiguity that annoyed me a little. The author gives you a glimpse into what may have happened.

Read an excerpt and listen to an interview with the author here

Have you read this? Do you plan on it? What did you like? Dislike? Share your thoughts, I’d love to hear them!