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A review by firerosearien
Survival in the Killing Fields by Haing Ngor
5.0
I can't remember the last time a book made me so sad. Not just a 'meh', but a I-need-to-go-find-a-quiet-place-where-I-don't-have-to-talk-to-anyone-and-I-can-just bawl-my-eyes-out kind of sad.
I've read multiple Holocaust memoirs, but the suffering Haing Ngor went through is at another level. As he loses everyone dear to him (well, almost everyone) one-by-one, I'm there praying that his wife, his sole support, his reason for living makes it through the Khmer Rouge, but nope. He, a doctor specializing OB-GYN cannot save his wife during a difficult, complicated birth caused by her malnutrition.
Although Ngor survives the Khmer Rouge, he doesn't ever really heal (the epilogue in this edition follows him up until his death in 1996). This is a haunting, harrowing account of what no human should ever have to endure.
I've read multiple Holocaust memoirs, but the suffering Haing Ngor went through is at another level. As he loses everyone dear to him (well, almost everyone) one-by-one, I'm there praying that his wife, his sole support, his reason for living makes it through the Khmer Rouge, but nope. He, a doctor specializing OB-GYN cannot save his wife during a difficult, complicated birth caused by her malnutrition.
Although Ngor survives the Khmer Rouge, he doesn't ever really heal (the epilogue in this edition follows him up until his death in 1996). This is a haunting, harrowing account of what no human should ever have to endure.