the mixed styles certainly work for this type of story and to explore these themes but i did also find them hard to adjust to.

Anam is interesting though sometimes long-winded and a little hard to follow, ultimately this novel tells a powerful story and is an intimate and raw insight into the horrors of war and the lasting and painful effects that wrongful imprisonment can have on a person and their family.

The unique blend of narrative and essay was intriguing for me, though confusing. It takes some getting used to but if you take the time to absorb this novel, there is a lot of beautiful language and meaningful messages.

I would recommend this to those who are interested in non-fiction as well as fiction, particularly historical writing. This is the story of an Australian man born of Vietnamese parents, looking back on his family with particular focus on his grandfather's wrongful imprisonment in Chi Hoa, a terribly infamous prison, for over ten years with no charge and no trial. A devastating look at some of the atrocities of Vietnam's history.

What an epic saga of generations of a family and their respective struggles - felt like I was right there with them.

To say this was not what I was expecting would be an understatement, for a start Andre Dao's writings, a blend of essay, history, theory, remembrance, research, philosophy, family, colonialism and nation, reads primarily like non-fiction. It is of an unknown Melbourne lawyer and academic, writing a thesis, driven to become a human rights lawyer, with his own family, Lauren, who offers her own thoughts, and a daughter, Edith. This 'novel' is multilayered, intellectually demanding, complex, thought provoking, where the search for a soul, identity, the past, memories, a grandfather, Anam (Vietnam) and Anamites, only to find it a more troubling process than he expected.

The more he reaches to grasp the facts and truth, who his grandfather and Anam is, the more of a quagmire it all becomes, the further it all slips away from him, he is doomed to failure. He had grown up listening to his grandfather stories, a man who had been imprisoned without trial for 10 years by the communist government at the notorious Chi Hoa prison, going on to die in a Paris suburb. He sifts through archives, photographs, historical documents, his personal recordings, the prison, the different perspectives and the thinking that has shaped his life, looking at theories, phenomenology, and the likes of Socrates, Jacques Derrida, and more. He finds himself hampered by his inability to forgive as his grandfather, and just how much has he misremembered, did he really know his grandfather, who exactly is he, and what exactly can he pass on to his daughter?

Inevitably Dao will have us thinking about ourselves, examining what we base our sense of identity on, the people, immigration, countries, cultures, the imagination, fantasies, and the self deceptions, and the memories. The grandfather's stories here are part of a bigger history, a history of all these places, and none of them, Anam and Anamites. There is suffering, loss, exile, forgiveness and redemption, life and people are overflowing with complexities, just how well is it possible to know families and others, there are the complications of being part of more than one country and culture, and the impact of colonialism. What do we remember and what do we forget? This may possibly not be a read for everyone, but it is an incredible, challenging and remarkable read that I have no hesitation in recommending highly. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

3.5

So I've read a few other reviews now I've finished because I did wonder if I'd missed something vital. But as I read the acknowledgements section is see that Dao has written and re-written this short book for the past 10 years and perhaps that's why I struggled with it.

We have a mix of family history, country history, essay, philosophy, theory, memoir and contemplation all thrown together in no particular order. There seemed to be a fair amount of repetition and I think that's possibly what finally gave me the headache.

Perhaps what I really wanted was a more formal history of Vietnam or the boat people or the Manus asylum seekers - all of which Dao is eminently able to describe. Maybe I just wanted something more linear rather than the bouncing about forwards, backwards and sideways that I got.

People who have a personal connection with Vietnam would probably find this book interesting.

Thanks to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for the advance review copy.