Things We Lost to the Water

Things We Lost to the Water (2021) is Eric Nguyen’s debut novel. Categorized as a coming-of-age story, or bildungsroman, a saga, and domestic fiction, the novel is narrated from multiple perspectives and follows the lives and vastly different immigrant experiences of three characters—Hương, Tuấn, and Bình (whose name is anglicized as Ben)—as they move from the Vietnam War to New Orleans in the US and build new lives. Among the book’s numerous accolades, it was listed as “[o]ne of President Obama’s Favorite Books of the Year, [won] the Crook’s Corner Book Prize for best debut novel set in the American South, [was] [l]onglisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize,” and was named both Chicago Public Library’s Best Book of the Year and one of “Fifteen Books to Watch for” by The New York Times (“Things We Lost to the Water.” Penguin Random House).

Eric Nguyen, an American-born child of Vietnamese immigrants, has an MFA in Creative Writing from McNeese State University in Louisiana, which inspired the New Orleans setting (To, Sydney Van. “‘Your Plans Are Never Going to Work’: An Interview With Eric Nguyen.” Chicago Review of Books, 14 May 2021), and has received fellowships from Voices of Our Nation Arts, Lambda Literary, and the Tin House Writers Workshop. In addition, Nguyen serves as the editor-in-chief of diaCRITICS.org, which “highlights art, literature, and stories from writers, artists, and culture-makers of the Vietnamese and Southeast Asian diaspora, on and from all shores” (“Mission.” DVAN, Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network). The novel explores several themes—Family Versus Self, Immigrant Experience Versus Identity, Fatherhood/Parental Influence, and Making/Finding a Home—as well as the symbolism of water, writing, language as identity, and the phone as a means of connection (or reconnection).

This guide references the Alfred A. Knopf (2021) edition of the novel.

Content Warning: While this guide doesn’t reproduce the racial slurs included in the novel, the guide does discuss war, trauma, torture, anti-gay bias, and racism.

Plot Summary

Hương, Tuấn, and Bình arrive in New Orleans in 1978 as Vietnam War refugees. Hương is a single mother who speaks no English. Her husband, Công, a French and Vietnamese literature professor, stays behind in Vietnam. Her eldest son, Tuấn, is a young child when he leaves Vietnam, while her youngest son, Bình (who was born in a refugee camp), has no memory of his father or Vietnam. These factors significantly influence their lives as they resettle in New Orleans.

Although the Catholic church helps Hương relocate, she finds this assistance inadequate and concludes that Catholicism is too similar to communism for comfort. She distances her family from the church and resolves to be self-reliant. She hopes to one day reunite with Công and regularly sends tape-recorded messages back to Vietnam. He eventually responds, requesting to cut off all contact. Confused and devastated, Hương lies to her children, hoping that his false, heroic death will shield them from his abandonment—but Tuấn, who remembers his father and Vietnam, is devastated by the news of Công’s “death.”

As Hương settles into life in New Orleans, she eventually begins to consider it home. She starts dating Vinh, a recent Vietnamese immigrant to New Orleans, and he eventually moves into her apartment. Vinh tries to become a father figure to the boys but is rebuffed. Tuấn struggles to adjust to New Orleans, facing animosity from both the Vietnamese community and white classmates. He fears losing his connection to his Vietnamese heritage and drops out of high school to join a Vietnamese gang, the Southern Boyz, hoping to maintain and express his heritage through them. Vinh warns him to stay away from the gang, but Tuấn ignores him and attempts an initiation mission to destroy a local business. Although he doesn’t follow through, he dates Thảo, one of the gang members. However, his family disapproves of her, so he moves out to live with her. Although Tuấn and Bình maintain a cordial relationship, they grow apart as time passes.

Bình, who arrived in New Orleans as a baby, more easily adapts to American culture. Constantly compared to Công, Bình spends much of his childhood searching for realistic father figures to emulate, including a Catholic priest and Vinh. Disconnected from the (Catholic) Vietnamese community, Bình seeks companionship and commonality. His Vietnamese family considers him American, but Americans “other” him as Asian; he finds the strongest companionship in Addy, an immigrant girl from Haiti. In second grade, Bình anglicizes his name to Ben, though his family continues to use his Vietnamese name. When he comes out as gay, his friendship with Addy ends. In addition, because of his high academic intelligence and his social isolation, Bình drops out of school. He focuses on exploring his identity as a young gay man, though he remains closeted from his family.

When Tuấn and Thảo attend the Southern Decadence parade, the city’s LGBTQIA+ Pride event, Tuấn realizes that he no longer wants to associate with the gang. He and Thảo break up, and Thảo threatens revenge. Vinh misunderstands a newspaper ad for the parade and takes Hương to it on a date. Meanwhile, Bình intends to participate in the parade but accidentally finds Hương’s letters, photos, and tapes to Công. Although Bình doesn’t read Vietnamese, he understands enough to realize his mother’s lie and confronts her about it when she arrives back home. As their argument escalates, Tuấn calls, attempting to reconnect with his family. Bình rejects his mother as a parent and runs away to Tuấn’s house, who shelters and mediates for him.

Years later, Công dies, and his second wife, Lan, requests that Hương come to Vietnam for his funeral. There, Hương finds the closure she sought: Công chose to remain in Vietnam because of his love for his homeland and the trauma he endured in the Vietnam War. Knowing this, she can finally begin to let him go. Tuấn accompanies his mother and Vinh to Vietnam for Công’s funeral, but by then Công is a stranger to him. With Vinh, Tuấn tours Saigon, looking for his childhood home, but it’s long gone. Tuấn realizes that Vietnam is foreign to him, after all, and shifts his focus to trying to bring his family together. Later, Tuấn encounters Addy, Bình’s childhood friend, and they begin dating.

Bình eventually finds a job as a housekeeper/assistant to a university literature professor, Lars Schreiber, who is a European immigrant. Upon discovering Bình’s intelligence, he nurtures the boy’s academic inclinations and helps him enter the university, becoming another father figure for him. Schreiber defends Bình from the derision of (white) graduate and PhD students but doesn’t support Bình’s decision to move to France. Tuấn, too, tries to dissuade Bình from going to France, but Bình moves anyway to escape the suffocation of his family and mentor’s expectations. In France, he meets Michel, a young French Communist. They become lovers, and Bình settles into a life with him in Paris. As time passes, Bình fights the ennui of purposelessness.

When Hurricane Katrina hits, Tuấn and Addy shelter on higher ground with a wealthy, gay-coded stranger. Hương and Vinh, unable to evacuate with Tuấn, seek shelter with a Black family. As they await rescue on the rooftop, Hương is fixated by a corpse caught in the flood. When Bình sees the devastation of Hurricane Katrina on television, he calls Hương to reconnect with her after years of estrangement.