Tag: Nonfiction

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.”






Recommendation: Nothing Daunted by Dorothy Wickenden

~ Jennifer @ The Relentless Reader ~ 8 Comments


In the summer of 1916, Dorothy Woodruff and Rosamond Underwood, bored by society luncheons, charity work, and the effete men who courted them, left their families in Auburn, New York, to teach school in the wilds of northwestern Colorado. They lived with a family of homesteaders in the Elkhead Mountains and rode to school on horseback, often in blinding blizzards. Their students walked or skied, in tattered clothes and shoes tied together with string. The young cattle rancher who had lured them west, Ferry Carpenter, had promised them the adventure of a lifetime. He hadn’t let on that they would be considered dazzling prospective brides for the locals.

Nearly a hundred years later, Dorothy Wickenden, the granddaughter of Dorothy Woodruff, found the teachers’ buoyant letters home, which captured the voices of the pioneer women, the children, and other unforgettable people the women got to know. In reconstructing their journey, Wickenden has created an exhilarating saga about two intrepid women and the “settling up” of the West.

While reading this I kept thinking YOU GO GIRLS! I was impressed by the pictures and snippets of the women’s letters that the author shared. If you like history, women busting out of their prescribed roles or frontier stories I think you’ll enjoy this read.

Have you read this book? Do you plan to?