Vu Tran (1) (1975–)

I'm not sure if I really loved this book or if it was just so different than everything I've read recently that I loved the novelty, but this was an incredibly enjoyable audiobook listen.

Vu Tran is an Vietnamese-American writer who wrote about a white cop that believes himself to be in love with is ex-wife, a Vietnamese-American woman. The racial identities feel important because throughout this story, there's a sort of underlying discussion about what makes interracial relationships difficult. And while this phenom isn't unique to white men, through this white male protagonist, Tran shows us how a man can claim to love a woman without really knowing her, how he can claim to love her while also hurting her. We also get a very keen sense of this white man's entitlement, of his inclination to forgive himself of his sins while also judging others (all Vietnamese people) of the same sins extremely harshly. His lack of self-awareness is...*chefs kiss*. Near the end of the book, a Vietnamese man calls our protagonist "pathetic" and I'd wholeheartedly agree. He's just another entitled white cop with daddy issues. But I loved reading about him.

What I like about Tran's writing though is that he plays it very straight. He writes the protagonist like a hero because the protagonist sees himself as a hero. He does things that make him unlikeable to me, but it didn't feel like the author was forcing that "unlikeable" characteristic on the hero, he was just telling the facts.

I also loved Suzy as a second protagonist. She falls into the "bad mom" trope that I love. She is a complex woman who never really let marriage or motherhood completely consume her. And it seemed like her core desire was to be understood, which was hard because of her complexity. We spend most of the book watching this cop make every effort to hunt her down and understand her, while also getting stories from Suzy about her past.

This was the first neo-noir I read and I could see myself reading a lot more.… (altro)