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A review by logbook
Such a Lovely Little War: Saigon 1961-63 by Marcelino Truong
3.0
The book is a memoir that takes place when the writer was a child, so I will not judge Troung's immediate history, which he had no control over. But I wish he delved into the intricacies of each "side" (or "non-side") more, although I realize that the majority of diasporic Vietnamese writing has an anti-communist bias.
Troung sometimes does touch upon the ills and corruption during the Diem presidency, but he always follows it with a line about the communists being worst than the presidency. And I, by no means, wish that this was a pro-communist book, but the Vietnam War involved so many complexities regarding how it affected familial structures, displacement/immigration, and Vietnamese society in general that it was disappointing to see a better-than/worse-than dichotomy. But, regardless, Such a Lovely Little War had captivating storytelling, and I would recommend it to anyone contemplating a Vietnam War book [written by an old white dude].
Troung sometimes does touch upon the ills and corruption during the Diem presidency, but he always follows it with a line about the communists being worst than the presidency. And I, by no means, wish that this was a pro-communist book, but the Vietnam War involved so many complexities regarding how it affected familial structures, displacement/immigration, and Vietnamese society in general that it was disappointing to see a better-than/worse-than dichotomy. But, regardless, Such a Lovely Little War had captivating storytelling, and I would recommend it to anyone contemplating a Vietnam War book [written by an old white dude].