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A review by iseefeelings
The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse by Vinh Nguyen
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.5
I recently attended an Amnesty book club on World Refugee Day, where Vinh Nguyen was a guest speaker. Although I only read a few chapters at the time, I was already captivated by Nguyen’s tender prose. During the discussion, I listened to his perspective on the stories that he carried throughout the process of writing his memoir. When asked about his feelings of belonging to neither of the countries as an immigrant, if he ever experienced such feelings at all, he shared memories of playing in the refugee camp. Nguyen then acknowledged that the sense of belonging is ‘overrated’. I was taken aback by that at first, but as he explained, I realized that we usually emphasized on whether a place accepts us as strangers coming to its land instead of considering the other way around. Even during the time that Nguyen had no place to call home, in the middle of being ‘stateless’, he still found joy. I think it’s a refreshing take to seek our sense of home as opposed to being defined by the walls around us.
This book appears to be a way for the author to process grief and loss; since the wounds remain unhealed, the writer's uncertainty spilled onto the pages. Its title, The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse, is clever and I love how Vinh Nguyen’s tender words carry me through each chapter.
Although speculative memoir may not be my favourite genre and I barely learned much about the author’s life, he painted the father figure meticulously and allowed space for his mother’s narrative gracefully. Even though I found some parts to be far-fetched, it was moving to be reminded how we often overlook that our parents are, after all, only humans with hopes and dreams.
As a Vietnamese who grew up in Sai Gon after the war and later immigrated to the same country where the author currently resides, I do approach this book with a cautious mind: what I read represented a different perspective that I never learned in my history class, while the author's experiences are true to him, they might still can be an incomplete view. I want to stray away from the political debates regarding old and new Vietnam, but I wonder how many readers might mistakenly see a memoir like this as a representation of the entire country instead of a specific period in history.
It’s intriguing to flip through the pages and recognize the places that I previously walked past both in Vietnam and Canada, which have been featured in another individual's narrative and uncovered various facts that I'd once missed. Vinh Nguyen didn’t recount the past experiences with bitterness, he simply devoted to making sense of what his family went through—this, in fact, is what makes the book endearing to me. Gently and genuinely, the book unfolds, and for many immigrants and refugees who might not know what home is—something that “remains just out of our reach”— all we truly need is just an open listener.
This book appears to be a way for the author to process grief and loss; since the wounds remain unhealed, the writer's uncertainty spilled onto the pages. Its title, The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse, is clever and I love how Vinh Nguyen’s tender words carry me through each chapter.
Although speculative memoir may not be my favourite genre and I barely learned much about the author’s life, he painted the father figure meticulously and allowed space for his mother’s narrative gracefully. Even though I found some parts to be far-fetched, it was moving to be reminded how we often overlook that our parents are, after all, only humans with hopes and dreams.
As a Vietnamese who grew up in Sai Gon after the war and later immigrated to the same country where the author currently resides, I do approach this book with a cautious mind: what I read represented a different perspective that I never learned in my history class, while the author's experiences are true to him, they might still can be an incomplete view. I want to stray away from the political debates regarding old and new Vietnam, but I wonder how many readers might mistakenly see a memoir like this as a representation of the entire country instead of a specific period in history.
It’s intriguing to flip through the pages and recognize the places that I previously walked past both in Vietnam and Canada, which have been featured in another individual's narrative and uncovered various facts that I'd once missed. Vinh Nguyen didn’t recount the past experiences with bitterness, he simply devoted to making sense of what his family went through—this, in fact, is what makes the book endearing to me. Gently and genuinely, the book unfolds, and for many immigrants and refugees who might not know what home is—something that “remains just out of our reach”— all we truly need is just an open listener.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Genocide, Misogyny, Racial slurs, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Colonisation, War, Deportation
Minor: Child death, Gun violence, Sexual assault, Slavery