Viet Thanh Nguyen Is The Pro-Refugee Voice America Needs To Hear

Updated October 10, 2017 at 10:01 PM

Nguyen's debut novel, <i>The Sympathizer</i>, and short story collection, <i>The Refugees</i>. (Photo: Grove Press) — Nguyen's debut novel, *The Sympathizer* , and short story collection, *The Refugees* . (Photo: Grove Press)

When it comes to the Vietnam War, Vietnamese refugees in America and the Vietnamese diaspora, Viet Thanh Nguyen has written the book ― a few of them, actually. It’s little wonder the MacArthur Foundation chose to honor him among its 2017 class of Fellows, commonly referred to as “MacArthur Geniuses.”

An academic and a novelist, a critic and a short story virtuoso, Nguyen has written about the experiences of Vietnamese-American people and their roots in Vietnam from seemingly every angle. His debut novel, a darkly comic spy novel set amidst the Vietnam War, garnered him a Pulitzer Prize. He followed up with a collection of haunting short stories, which move away from the conflict itself to the experiences of Vietnamese refugees and immigrants.

Nguyen, a professor of English and American studies at the University of Southern California, has also published works of acclaimed nonfiction. His most recent nonfiction work, Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, critically examined the cultural memory and artistic memorialization of Vietnam throughout the world ― particularly calling attention to the dominance of American narratives of conflict, and the diminishing effect this has on our collective memory of other cultures, populations and their suffering.

His work has acted as a blazing ray of light illuminating a whole world of human experiences in a publishing industry often dominated completely by white American voices and perspectives ― and his breakout has arrived at a particularly vital time, when a wave of anti-refugee and nativistic rhetoric has gripped American politics.

We reached out to Nguyen ahead of the MacArthur announcement to talk more about his impressive body of work, the current political moment and what he hopes to do with his hefty grant from the MacArthur Foundation:

Viet Thanh Nguyen, 2017 MacArthur Fellow, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, September 23, 2017. (Photo: John D Catherine T MacArthur Foundation)

How did it feel to be a Genius Grant recipient?

It felt like a shock, a big surprise. I had to sit down for a little bit ― actually, through the entire length of the conversation.

Just a huge honor, but also a moment where I had to think very much about how lucky I was to get this, given how many other important, good, great, fantastic writers are out there who could have gotten this award, and all the others in previous generations who did not get this, but who were doing incredibly important work that made it possible for me to publish my own book.

Are there any writers that you look back on ― that you’ve read or that you’ve built on ― and think you really couldn’t have done it without them?

If you think about the people who’ve won the MacArthur, there’ve been so many writers who I’ve enjoyed reading and who’ve inspired me. People like Junot Diaz and, I think, Edwidge Danticat.

And then I think of myself, obviously, as an American writer, but also very specifically sometimes as a Vietnamese-American or Asian-American writer. I think back to the fact that Asian-American writers have been writing in this country, in English, since the late 1800s. Those early writers must have been very lonely people, because [there were] only one or two or a handful of them. But the work of writers like that, like the Eaton sisters from the late 1800s, established a tradition that made it possible for someone like me, more than a hundred years later, to publish a book that people at least would recognize as something they understood.

What do you have planned next? What are you going to do with the grant?

I haven’t really thought about it that much, but I have a blog that I do, that I edit, called Diacritics.org, and it’s devoted to the politics, art and culture of the Vietnamese and their diaspora. I’ve built it up over several years and unfortunately, in the last couple of years, because of the Pulitzer, it’s just been sort of moribund, because I don’t have the time. I want to use some of the money to hire an editor to take over that site because what it does is to create a space for writers like me to talk about these things that are important to us.

You’ve written about the Vietnamese diaspora and refugees and the Vietnam-American War both in fiction and nonfiction. Why do you keep writing in both? What draws you to each form?

I think my first attraction was always to fiction, ever since I wrote my first book when I was in the second grade. I became a scholar because when I was in college, I was just better at that, and I was realistic about what I could do. So I became an academic and a critic.

Both of these things, nonfiction and fiction, have remained important to me, because I think they can accomplish different kinds of things. In my case I wanted to try to understand the Vietnam War and the refugee experiences and the United States from both of these kinds of perspectives ― nonfiction and fiction, scholarship and art.

But I think the last thing is simply that I’m just someone who’s easily bored, so as soon as I’m done with something, I like to do something different. That’s one of the things that working with nonfiction and fiction enables me, which is this sense of constantly experimenting, and being an amateur, and also setting myself up for potential humiliation because I don’t know what I’m doing. That’s how I learn, by trying to keep on being a student and moving between these different disciplines.

I recently heard Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie say that she’s found American literature is resistant to overt discussions of race and politics, that there’s an expectation that art should be separate or if it discusses politics it’ll be really subtle. What do you think the role of literature, and fiction particularly, should be in political life?

Well, I think generally she’s right, about speaking about American literature as a whole. There are certainly American writers who are political, they just either tend to be in the minority or they are actual minorities, racial minorities for example, or sexual minorities and so on.

I think that’s important to point out, that the political traditions of American literature have often fallen to African-American writers, for example, or Asian-American writers. I think because for us, we see that it’s hard to separate politics from everything else in your life, including art. Separating politics is not a luxury that many of us have. That’s one of the things that I think the MacArthur has been really good at doing, at least when it comes to writers, is recognizing writers who don’t see a separation between politics and literature, or see that you can use literature to be both something that’s artistic but also political.

I’ve always been a person interested in the possibilities of art and politics intersecting, and been frustrated that so much of American literature, especially by people from majority populations, however you choose to define that, have been very quiet on that issue. It is definitely something I find exciting to do, but also sometimes you feel very lonely because other American writers and American audiences sometimes just don’t want to hear it.

Your book The Refugees arrived at this time when a lot of people were talking about refugees and whether they would be and should be made welcome in America. It’s a very visible issue right now, but it’s also not a new issue. What do you think are the long-term, historical misunderstandings that Americans have had about refugees and immigrants and their place in our country, and do you think that’s changing?

I think on this issue, as on so many others in American society today, the United States of America is contradictory, and these contradictions go to the very origins of American society. The earliest settlers in this country from Europe and so on were classified as either immigrants or refugees, and yet at the same time American history has a long tradition of nativism and exclusion and racism directed against newcomers of various backgrounds. So we’ve, for a long time, been a country that’s embraced the mythology of the immigrant as being crucial to who we are, and yet periodically we have spasms of anti-immigrant and anti-refugee feeling.

Of course, I think that is obviously what’s happening today. We’re in one of those xenophobic moments. But at the same time, it’s not a complete victory for those forces who are opposed to migrants and refugees. There’s a substantial number of Americans saying that refugees and immigrants should be welcome here and do make us better, and so on.

There are misunderstandings that arise in American society around this idea that refugees and immigrants only come to take things from other Americans, when, in fact, I think most economic studies indicate that they actually contribute more. We should look at other countries that are completely restrictive on issues of immigration and accepting refugees, and see that they suffer from a lack of cultural diversity and tolerance.

We’re just in a moment of conflict and it’s unclear what the resolution is going to be, but it’s obviously critical for refugees and immigrants like me to speak up about it. Again, going back to the question of politics and the role that politics plays in the lives of writers ― we have to. Those of us who are refugees and immigrants or who support them, we have to use every tool at our disposal, including our writing, to speak up about this.

There’s been this big push to say we’re a nation of immigrants, but then there are Native Americans who would say, “We weren’t immigrants. We were invaded, we were colonized.” How do we grapple with the fact that this country is both made up of immigrants and refugees, but also people who were colonized?

That’s absolutely right. That, I think, is part of that ― when I say America is a contradictory place. These are part of the root contradictions. That’s why it’s crucial for those of us who are immigrants and refugees to not only privilege the language of coming here and settling down, as if these were only positives. If we have any success, it’s made possible by participating in this original history of settler colonization.

The smartest writers I know, people who are recognized by the MacArthur but others as well, they make these connections. They don’t settle simply on one narrative, where the immigrant comes here to make it good, but they also talk about the immigrant in relation to other populations in this country, including Native peoples and African Americans.

Your work really deals with these historical contradictions and injustices of America. There’s a strong urge among many on the left right now to say that this is worse than it’s ever been, and “now more than ever” we have to protect people. Is this an ahistorical framing? What’s your reaction to this vision of the Trump era of the absolute nadir of American life?

I think it may be the nadir within, at least, recent memory. I’m the most stressed out about politics I’ve been since I’ve been born, I think. But I think that, going back to this notion of contradictions and root contradictions, that they’ve shaped American society from the beginning. Then you have a sense that American history has moved cyclically and that there have been moments in American history when things have been worse ― slavery, the Civil War, Reconstruction ― and the fact that those issues are actually not over, as we see with Charlottesville. It means that these historical things we might want to think are over and done with are actually not.

The election of Donald Trump right after the election of Barack Obama, to me, speaks exactly to the fact that we in the United States are still dealing with a history that goes back hundreds of years, to issues that are still unresolved today. It feels pretty bad to those of us on the left, but that’s only because those contemporary issues are revealing that the U.S. has always been driven around race and class and gender and sexuality, and we are now being forced to look directly at that contradiction, whereas at certain more luxurious moments in American history, they’ve been submerged, at least to the eyes of the mainstream.

Speaking of the submersion of history, one thing I loved about The Refugees was this fascination throughout with the idea of haunting, and the past returning in this ghostly form ― by memories, guilt, even literal ghosts. Why do you think you return to this conceptualization of the past as a haunting?

We came here as refugees, and one of the things that happened to my family was that not all of us made it. I have an adopted sister, my oldest sister, and she was left behind to take care of the family property. I was 4 years old, so I actually have no memory of her. When I was growing up, we had one family picture of her ― a black-and-white, wallet-sized picture ― that my dad managed to carry with with him.

I grew up with this sense that we have a missing person in our family. Don’t know why she’s not here; not really something I could talk about with my parents. I did feel haunted by that. It felt like there was an absence in our family. I thought often about who she was, what her life was like, why’s she not here. To me that felt ghostly. I knew that that experience was actually very common, and that we were at least fortunate that she was alive. There were so many families I knew that had literally lost people, not just left them behind but that had died through one experience or another.

To me, ghostly hauntings were very real in the lives of these refugees that I knew. It didn’t take very much empathy to think that this was also true for some of the other people who were refugees and had fled from dire circumstances as well, who’ve all left behind things or people or identities.

Is that a framework you think we should be looking at America through ― this American history where so much has been ignored and submerged for so long?

As the sociologist Avery Gordon has said, ghosts are a figure of injustice ― that some injustice has happened in the past and a ghost returned to demand that justice be done. To achieve a genuine reconciliation with the past, to put those to rest, you really have to address directly what that injustice was. I think so much of American history has been the refusal to do justice to the injustices. We haven’t substantively corrected these problems.

There have been certain attempts to deal with the legacy of slavery, for example. Half the country, apparently, or at least a third of the country, doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal what happened, now, and that’s simply not true. I look at the example of Germany, the Holocaust ― horrific thing ― but the Germans are actually much better at confronting their past in both literal and symbolic ways than Americans have been about their own past. So as long as we’re not able to deal with it as a society, our past will keep coming back.

In American culture, we tend to assume a default white audience, and there can be this pressure for writers of color to explain things to white people, or educate white people, or make their narratives accessible. Is that a pressure you feel? Do you think about your audience when you’re writing?

As I was learning how to be a writer, it was a big issue for me. It’s a big issue for many writers ― who the audience is. It’s an issue for writers of color, minority writers, but all writers agonize, I think, or at least are aware, that their fate is in the hands of others. Who’s going to read this, who’s going to buy this, who’s going to publish this.

But it is a problem that’s exacerbated for writers of color, or anyone who’s not defined as mainstream or part of a majority, because we’re not the ones in power. So we can’t necessarily assume there will be something in common between us and the people who make these decisions to publish.

As a younger writer, I did write some of those stories in The Refugees in a state of anxiety, thinking about this issue. And it was very liberating after finishing The Refugees, when I started to write The Sympathizer, to think, I’m done with that. I wrote the book that I thought, in The Refugees, that was a little more oriented ― not just towards Vietnamese people but to whoever I thought was in charge of publishing. To give all that up, to give up all that anxiety with The Sympathizer because I simply didn’t care anymore, and to write for myself and for an implied Vietnamese audience, thinking then that everyone else who read this book would be in the position of an eavesdropper, was really liberating.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Check out a complete list of the 2017 MacArthur Fellows here.

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As a nod to James Baldwin's 1963 work <i>The Fire Next Time</i>, author Jesmyn Ward <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fire-This-Time-Generation-Speaks/dp/1501126342/" target="_blank">gathered the writings</a> of prominent voices on race, including Kiese Laymon, Claudia Rankine and Edwidge Danticat, among others. Their writings on racial tension and a call to action ring as true as Baldwin's did in the civil rights era, offering proof that we, as a country, have a desperately long way to go to right historical wrongs. As we close out 2016, the perspectives in this collection are more urgent and essential than ever. -JC — As a nod to James Baldwin's 1963 work *The Fire Next Time*, author Jesmyn Ward gathered the writings of prominent voices on race, including Kiese Laymon, Claudia Rankine and Edwidge Danticat, among others. Their writings on racial tension and a call to action ring as true as Baldwin's did in the civil rights era, offering proof that we, as a country, have a desperately long way to go to right historical wrongs. As we close out 2016, the perspectives in this collection are more urgent and essential than ever. -JC

"Every Song Ever," Ben Ratliff

“We are listening to music in the time of the cloud,” Ratliff begins <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374277907/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thehuffingtop-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0374277907&linkId=13e0c4fa82b848a6a1798b37480c87d4" target="_blank">Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen to Music in an Age of Musical Plenty</a></i><i>. </i>Regardless of who we are or where we live, today’s digital era provides us access to a seemingly infinite playlist, the ability to listen to anything, anywhere, anytime. This radical abundance, and the experimentation and cross-pollination it engenders, Ratcliff suggests, requires new means of listening and understanding music. Genre, The New York Times music critic suggests, is obsolete. Ratliff goes on to suggest 20 new ways to describe music — based more in feeling than era, technique, or physical origin. Slowness, for example, unites Sarah Vaughan’s “Lover Man” and Sleep’s “Dopesmoker.” And silence or quietness connects John Cage’s “4’33” and Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody.” It’s a fun read, best experienced with Spotify open and ready, and an unorthodox look at music’s past and limitless present. -PF — “We are listening to music in the time of the cloud,” Ratliff begins *Every Song Ever: Twenty Ways to Listen to Music in an Age of Musical Plenty*. Regardless of who we are or where we live, today’s digital era provides us access to a seemingly infinite playlist, the ability to listen to anything, anywhere, anytime. This radical abundance, and the experimentation and cross-pollination it engenders, Ratcliff suggests, requires new means of listening and understanding music. Genre, The New York Times music critic suggests, is obsolete. Ratliff goes on to suggest 20 new ways to describe music — based more in feeling than era, technique, or physical origin. Slowness, for example, unites Sarah Vaughan’s “Lover Man” and Sleep’s “Dopesmoker.” And silence or quietness connects John Cage’s “4’33” and Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody.” It’s a fun read, best experienced with Spotify open and ready, and an unorthodox look at music’s past and limitless present. -PF

"Rolling Blackouts" by Sarah Glidden

Sarah Glidden followed her friends to the Middle East with one goal: to report on the reporters. Her friends were actually members of a journalist collective, traveling to Turkey, Syria and Iraq in order to learn refugees’ stories and report on the after-effects of the U.S. war on Iraq. The result is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1770462554/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thehuffingtop-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1770462554&linkId=52be5b41c3f9f73382b9fe455a9810d5" target="_blank">part travelogue, part memoir and part reportage</a> — an accessible and specific narrative for news-tired readers who have long disassociated from headlines about war and refugees. If this is your introduction to “comics journalism,” don’t let it be the last. -JC<br /><br /><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sarah-glidden-rolling-blackouts_us_57ee9857e4b0c2407cdd9ded"><i>Read our interview with Sarah Glidden</i></a><i>.</i> — Sarah Glidden followed her friends to the Middle East with one goal: to report on the reporters. Her friends were actually members of a journalist collective, traveling to Turkey, Syria and Iraq in order to learn refugees’ stories and report on the after-effects of the U.S. war on Iraq. The result is part travelogue, part memoir and part reportage — an accessible and specific narrative for news-tired readers who have long disassociated from headlines about war and refugees. If this is your introduction to “comics journalism,” don’t let it be the last. -JC

*Read our interview with Sarah Glidden*.

"Violation" by Sallie Tisdale

Sallie Tisdale’s name might not be immediately recognizable to readers, but after <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0990437086/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thehuffingtop-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0990437086&linkId=728c036839e74fd07b07803d0b1ba818" target="_blank">finishing this collection</a>, you won’t soon forget her. Tisdale, a nurse and mother as well as a writer, explores various topics in a quietly revealing manner. One standout is “We Do Abortions Here,” first published in 1987 and all the more relevant in a political climate where women’s rights are routinely dismissed and threatened — most recently in the new Texas law <a href="http://www.vogue.com/13508781/texas-abortion-law-funerals-fetuses/">requiring clinics to cremate or bury aborted fetuses</a>. Tisdale’s writing is spectacular and her observations valuable: She’s a voice to listen to. -JC — Sallie Tisdale’s name might not be immediately recognizable to readers, but after finishing this collection, you won’t soon forget her. Tisdale, a nurse and mother as well as a writer, explores various topics in a quietly revealing manner. One standout is “We Do Abortions Here,” first published in 1987 and all the more relevant in a political climate where women’s rights are routinely dismissed and threatened — most recently in the new Texas law requiring clinics to cremate or bury aborted fetuses. Tisdale’s writing is spectacular and her observations valuable: She’s a voice to listen to. -JC

"You Belong to the Universe" by Jonathon Keats

Buckminster Fuller, the inventor and artist known for his love of geodesic domes, his faith in Dymaxion cars, and his desire to “make the world work for one hundred percent of humanity,” is a fascinating subject. He was both an intellectual and a character straight out of a sci-fi novel, who believed so deeply that collaboration was necessary to combat our planet’s changing circumstances. Jonathon Keats <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/019933823X/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thehuffingtop-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=019933823X&linkId=36462abb6a4622241605685372dbcf00" target="_blank">manages to bring the 20th-century ideas</a> of Fuller into the 21st century, arguing that the visionaries’ utopian proposals are more possible than ever. -KB — Buckminster Fuller, the inventor and artist known for his love of geodesic domes, his faith in Dymaxion cars, and his desire to “make the world work for one hundred percent of humanity,” is a fascinating subject. He was both an intellectual and a character straight out of a sci-fi novel, who believed so deeply that collaboration was necessary to combat our planet’s changing circumstances. Jonathon Keats manages to bring the 20th-century ideas of Fuller into the 21st century, arguing that the visionaries’ utopian proposals are more possible than ever. -KB

"Girls & Sex" by Peggy Orenstein

Modern women may bristle <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062209728/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thehuffingtop-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0062209728&linkId=8f39003a6e84b236347758f18cfa0348" target="_blank">at the idea of a book</a> that wrestles with the pros <i>and </i>cons of sex-positive feminism. Fair enough. But as a mother, Orenstein finds the question working its way into her personal life. So, as a journalist, she pursued it fervidly, interviewing over 70 college girls, getting to know the gritty details of their sex lives thus far. In doing so, Orenstein has created an illuminating ethnographic study of feminine youth. Sections of the book are dedicated to hook up culture, to rape culture, and to the celebrities upheld as emblems of sexual expression. Orenstein confronts a generation that seems foreign to her with openness and kindness, and in doing so shows us a thing or two about ourselves. -MC<br /><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/peggy-orenstein-girls-and-sex_us_57042d8fe4b053766188007e"><i><br />Read our review of Girls & Sex.</i></a> — Modern women may bristle at the idea of a book that wrestles with the pros *and* cons of sex-positive feminism. Fair enough. But as a mother, Orenstein finds the question working its way into her personal life. So, as a journalist, she pursued it fervidly, interviewing over 70 college girls, getting to know the gritty details of their sex lives thus far. In doing so, Orenstein has created an illuminating ethnographic study of feminine youth. Sections of the book are dedicated to hook up culture, to rape culture, and to the celebrities upheld as emblems of sexual expression. Orenstein confronts a generation that seems foreign to her with openness and kindness, and in doing so shows us a thing or two about ourselves. -MC

*Read our review of Girls & Sex.*

"Where Am I Now?" by Mara Wilson

"Agnes Martin and Me" by Donald Woodman

Donald Woodman describes himself as "assistant, friend, and sometime adversary" to the late, great Abstract Expressionist Agnes Martin, for whom he worked for seven years . Martin lived in isolation in New Mexico, producing minimalist canvases and concise, meditative mottos summarizing her practice. She said things like "No, I am not any of those stereotypes that are placed on women. I am an old woman, but I insult the male ego so men don't like me around." If you love the artist, you'll love this quiet recounting of her life and influence. -KB

"Adnan's Story" by Rabia Chaudry

If you listened to "Serial," the smash hit podcast that investigated the harrowing case of Adnan Syed, a man convicted under peculiar circumstances of murder in Baltimore back in 2000, then you'll fly through <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Adnans-Story-Search-Justice-Serial/dp/1250087104" target="_blank">this book</a>. Rabia Chaudry certainly provides a biased recounting of Syed's story -- she believes thoroughly that he's been denied justice, a foil to the critical lens provided by Sarah Koenig. But if you can't let the case go, here's your extended reading. -KB — If you listened to "Serial," the smash hit podcast that investigated the harrowing case of Adnan Syed, a man convicted under peculiar circumstances of murder in Baltimore back in 2000, then you'll fly through this book. Rabia Chaudry certainly provides a biased recounting of Syed's story -- she believes thoroughly that he's been denied justice, a foil to the critical lens provided by Sarah Koenig. But if you can't let the case go, here's your extended reading. -KB

"Land of Enchantment" by Leigh Stein

Land of Enchantment is the official nickname of New Mexico, where writer Leigh Stein lived briefly when she was in her early 20s and madly in love. She met Jason at a play audition, and the two moved to New Mexico together so he could work while she wrote; the plan was that after a year they’d move to LA so he could audition while she worked. Instead, he became abusive and the relationship fell dramatically apart. Several years later, by then a professional with a new boyfriend and living in New York, she got a phone call from an unfamiliar number: Jason had been killed in a motorcycle crash. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1101982675/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thehuffingtop-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1101982675&linkId=ed8e83be55a65c2e7d320582f16d1e73" target="_blank">The elegiac, poetic memoir</a> Stein wrote about their tortured relationship, her grief for him, and her lifetime of depression and isolation hits on resonant notes for anyone who’s unexpectedly lost a loved one, been through an abusive or unhealthy relationship, or struggled with mental health issues. That means if you’re prone to weeping while you read, you should have a hanky ready. -CF<br /><br /><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/leigh-stein-land-of-enchantment_us_57e3deebe4b0e28b2b527820"><i>Read our interview with Leigh Stein.</i></a> — Land of Enchantment is the official nickname of New Mexico, where writer Leigh Stein lived briefly when she was in her early 20s and madly in love. She met Jason at a play audition, and the two moved to New Mexico together so he could work while she wrote; the plan was that after a year they’d move to LA so he could audition while she worked. Instead, he became abusive and the relationship fell dramatically apart. Several years later, by then a professional with a new boyfriend and living in New York, she got a phone call from an unfamiliar number: Jason had been killed in a motorcycle crash. The elegiac, poetic memoir Stein wrote about their tortured relationship, her grief for him, and her lifetime of depression and isolation hits on resonant notes for anyone who’s unexpectedly lost a loved one, been through an abusive or unhealthy relationship, or struggled with mental health issues. That means if you’re prone to weeping while you read, you should have a hanky ready. -CF

*Read our interview with Leigh Stein.*

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.

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