The Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars

This book is not about the immigrant experience. It is about the war refugee experience, which later in this century will the subject of defining the American experience as part of the search for who we are. I hope Andrew Pham is alive when the day comes in which this masterpiece is considered one of those books for which not having read it would reveal a personal deficit. In the age, just now starting, of war refugees simultaneously uniting and convulsing Western democracies, this book will be a common safe haven for the debate of who we let in and who we don't, and more importantly why.The book is poetry and prose, the author too young to have the wisdom needed for holding the chapters together. It is his father and grandfather who have done that. This is a first person memoir of the author's father, told in a way that only a son or daughter could. This does not diminish the son, and the writing is all his own. But the ways in which he must have benefited and evolved because of his father's permission and collaboration must surely be the subject of a book in its own right.The father's life was full and tragic, inspiring and pitiful, and exposes how indispensable courage is in pushing through the barriers of self doubt. The lessons are that privilege is ephemeral, ideology is untrustworthy, and the truest dignity comes from commitment to family at all costs, and not giving up on friendships in the darkness of deprivation and betrayal.It would be hard to reach the heights and perennial relevance of a memoir like this if written by the war refugee himself. The story must be interpreted by an offspring raised in America. It demands contemporary language and cultural agility. It is that which makes this book, all of which is set in Vietnam, an American classic.

`The Eves of Heaven` is an "auto-biography" by Thong Van Pham. In fact it is written by his son Andrew, but he takes on the first person voice of his father Thong, similar to the technique used by Dave Eggers in ` What Is the What? `. It is difficult to know how accurate it is, or what degree of artistic license is involved, but in a way it doesn't matter because as creative non-fiction it reads like a novel.Not only is the story highly engrossing, thrilling and fascinating, but it is humane. Thong never seems to loose his sense of dignity and respect for life despite the horrors of violence, drugs and prostitution that stalk him. The lush prose is deliciously sensuous in one chapter, then shifts to scenes of deprivation the next, like a master chef playing the pallet between extremes of texture and temperature - and like the fusion of French and Asian culture that is Vietnam.`The Eaves of Heaven` covers over 30 years of war in Vietnam as it transitioned from a "feudal" age to the modern world in one or two generations - the Japanese in WWII, the French and then the Americans. One mans lifetime saw it all from start to end. Through this wonderfully written, humane and moving memoir of a single life, I was better able to understand Vietnam, its people and its recent past.

After reading the bood, when I visited S.E. Asia, I could better understand the countries of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia. It is amazing how happy the people seem; they persist at smiling all the time. And why after all the terrible history they were forced through ? As the book of a real life story growing up there shows, it is because very few people are left from the war eras. The Communists basically came in and either killed everyone remaining or forced them to flee under cover. So most of those left were born after the Vietnam War. They pretty much ignore the Communist government, which is why their mostly capitalist economy is thriving.The book also gives a good perspective of why the locals have the feelings they have toward the Chinese, Japanese, French and Americans. For example, you have to remember that the Americans, although they inflicted terrible damage, were there only 20 years while the Chinese have inflicting their damage for centuries and are still at it. The Vietnamese still know that China will try to take some of their territory in the near future and wonder when it will ever stop. But overall, the people have an amazing vibrant outlook on life and are willing to share everything with those who reciprocate.

I sought out THE EAVES OF HEAVEN after reading Andrew X. Pham's story of his bicycle trip in Vietnam, CATFISH AND MANDALA. Now I am reading Mr. Pham's translation of I DREAMED OF PEACE, to "see" how it is to be on the other side of a war.My wife and I were active protesters of the Vietnam war and participated in the 1968 anti-war march in Washington. In 2008, we worked hard here in Nevada to help elect President Obama so he could end the war in Iraq. We are anti-war people. Why? After reading the above books, I think it is because of this:My wife was born in 1941 in Stuttgart, Germany, a town that was 75% destroyed by Allied bombs. She immigrated to the U.S as a maid in Scarsdale, NY in 1965. We married in 1967. She never talks about the war in Germany, even though we have visited Germany a number of times. However, to this day, when she hears sirens she tightens up and is reminded of air raid shelters and bombs.Andrew X.Pham is a wonderful writer and translator of the horrors, humanity and inhumanity of war. He has helped to fill in the "untold stories" my wife never talks about and I NEVER bring up.

Great book more information about a time and place not known by outsiders. One of the best books about Vietnamese culture. As a Vietnam veteran I wish I had read this book before going to war with them.

Bought for my husband, who is devouring this book and thinks it's excellent. As soon as he's finished (not long now!) I will read it myself.

This is a new paperback for which I previously left the wrong review.I hope the read is as good as Mr Pham's last one.

Very good, clean book