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stephenhongsohn.livejournal.comA Review of Thanhha Lai’s Inside Out & Back Again (HarperCollins Publishers 2010)
I typically don’t review YA novels by Asian American writers. I’m not sure why I’ve had this inclination, but it’s been difficult to keep up with the “adult” genres in general, so I’ve tried to limit myself in this way. Thanhha Lai’s Inside Out & Back Again interested me because it is an autobiographically-inflected novel written in verse form. I thought the choice was interesting given the fact that poetry tends to be a form that is not used in this way. Reading this work also made me realize that at some point, I am going to have to read YA and children’s literatures. When I will have the time to catch up on that arena, I’m not sure, but writers like Linda Sue Park, Marie G. Lee, Laurence Yep, Cynthia Kadohata, and others have just not been on my radar lately because of my own reading filters.
In any case, Lai’s Inside Out & Back Again focuses on a young Vietnamese American refugee girl named Ha. Through her eyes, we see an entire family as it struggles through the final stages of the Vietnam War. We follow her family’s harrowing journey as “boat people,” who are fortunately rescued, but then must subsist in camps until they are sponsored. Ha’s family chooses to come to the United States and later, as the mother tactically alters their religious background to Christianity, the family is further sponsored by an American family living in Alabama. Ha’s adjustment to living in Alabama is, not surprisingly, vexed. Schooling is particularly a cruel ground for assimilating into American culture. While I’m not entirely sure the verse form succeeds on its own, the novel is extremely adept at rendering a complex and traumatic narrative with both nuance and readability. In this way, Ha’s novel really speaks to multiple audiences and troubles the taxonomic categories we like to put on literatures more generally. I don’t think of age group too often when considering Asian American literature, but I suppose my adventures in reading graphic novels has led me to realize more and more that such boundaries are ultimately artificial.
Buy the book here:
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Out-Back-Again-Thanhha/dp/0061962783
I typically don’t review YA novels by Asian American writers. I’m not sure why I’ve had this inclination, but it’s been difficult to keep up with the “adult” genres in general, so I’ve tried to limit myself in this way. Thanhha Lai’s Inside Out & Back Again interested me because it is an autobiographically-inflected novel written in verse form. I thought the choice was interesting given the fact that poetry tends to be a form that is not used in this way. Reading this work also made me realize that at some point, I am going to have to read YA and children’s literatures. When I will have the time to catch up on that arena, I’m not sure, but writers like Linda Sue Park, Marie G. Lee, Laurence Yep, Cynthia Kadohata, and others have just not been on my radar lately because of my own reading filters.
In any case, Lai’s Inside Out & Back Again focuses on a young Vietnamese American refugee girl named Ha. Through her eyes, we see an entire family as it struggles through the final stages of the Vietnam War. We follow her family’s harrowing journey as “boat people,” who are fortunately rescued, but then must subsist in camps until they are sponsored. Ha’s family chooses to come to the United States and later, as the mother tactically alters their religious background to Christianity, the family is further sponsored by an American family living in Alabama. Ha’s adjustment to living in Alabama is, not surprisingly, vexed. Schooling is particularly a cruel ground for assimilating into American culture. While I’m not entirely sure the verse form succeeds on its own, the novel is extremely adept at rendering a complex and traumatic narrative with both nuance and readability. In this way, Ha’s novel really speaks to multiple audiences and troubles the taxonomic categories we like to put on literatures more generally. I don’t think of age group too often when considering Asian American literature, but I suppose my adventures in reading graphic novels has led me to realize more and more that such boundaries are ultimately artificial.
Buy the book here:
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Out-Back-Again-Thanhha/dp/0061962783
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