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If I Had Two Lives
- Author
- Abbigail N. Rosewood
- Narrator
- Emily Woo Zeller
- Publisher
- Blackstone Publishing
- Publish Date
- 26 November 2019
- Run Time
- 8 hours 55 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
What to expect
This luminous debut novel follows a young woman from her childhood in Vietnam to her life as an immigrant in the United States—and her necessary return to her homeland.
As a child, isolated from the world in a secretive military encampment with her distant mother, she turns for affection to a sympathetic soldier and to the only other girl in the camp, forming two friendships that will shape the rest of her life.
As a young adult in New York, cut off from her native country and haunted by the scars of her youth, she is still in search of a home. She falls in love with a married woman who is the image of her childhood friend, and follows strangers because they remind her of her soldier. When tragedy arises, she must return to Vietnam to confront the memories of her youth—and recover her identity.
An inspiring meditation on love, loss, and the presence of a past that never dies, If I Had Two Lives explores the ancient question: Do we value the people in our lives because of who they are, or because of what we need them to be?
Critics Review
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“At no point does Rosewood lose sight of the migrant—depicting the remoteness of anyone in transit. Because something is intrinsically lost. And someone is always left behind.”
Bomb magazine
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“A tale of staggering artistry, devastation, compassion, and social awareness.”
Los Angeles Review of Books
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“The novel poignantly conjures the difficulties of reconciling the present with ‘an ungraspable history.’”
New Yorker
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“A lyrical, exquisitely written novel that delves into ugliness in the most beautiful way.”
New York Journal of Books
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“A poignant tale of loneliness and love.”
Booklist
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“A harrowing, wondrously constructed story of how life is lived today.”
Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author
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“A stunning, totally original tale by a master storyteller.”
Yelena Akhtiorskaya, author of Panic in a Suitcase
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Details
- Author
- Abbigail N. Rosewood
- Narrator
- Emily Woo Zeller
- Duration
- 8 hours 55 minutes
- Release Date
- 26 November 2019
- ISBN
- 9781094056951
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Blackstone Publishing
- Genre
- Fiction: general and literary, Fiction: general and literary, Fiction: general and literary
Synopsis
This luminous debut novel follows a young woman from her childhood in Vietnam to her life as an immigrant in the United States—and her necessary return to her homeland.As a child, isolated from the world in a secretive military encampment with her distant mother, she turns for affection to a sympathetic soldier and to the only other girl in the camp, forming two friendships that will shape the rest of her life.As a young adult in New York, cut off from her native country and haunted by the scars of her youth, she is still in search of a home. She falls in love with a married woman who is the image of her childhood friend, and follows strangers because they remind her of her soldier. When tragedy arises, she must return to Vietnam to confront the memories of her youth—and recover her identity.An inspiring meditation on love, loss, and the presence of a past that never dies, If I Had Two Lives explores the ancient question: Do we value the people in our lives because of who they are, or because of what we need them to be?
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