Maciek's Reviews > We Should Never Meet: Stories

Aimee Phan's debut collection of stories centers around the aftermath of Operation Babylift - the airlift of Vietnamese orphans during the Vietnam War, after the fall of Saigon. The operation evacuated about approximately 4,000 children, of whom more than 2,000 were transported to America.

We Should Never Meet consists of eight interlinked stories, moving swiftly between the U.S. and Vietnam, and lives and fates of their protagonists intertwine and are linked: a major character in one story will be appear or be mentioned in the other, often in a very different position and circumstances. This is an interesting approach and one which I quite enjoy, and which made the stories more memorable and effective.

The collection begins with a powerful combination - a birth preceded by violence;, in Miss Lien, the eponymous young mother makes the difficult choice of leaving her baby at the local convent, hoping that it'll give her child a better life; the following stories are centered around a group of Vietnamese youths in America and people both in the U.S and Vietnam whose lives crossed with theirs. The young Vietnamese characters grew up in foster homes or adoptive families and are just entering adulthood, struggling with the feelings of rejection and alienation, being torn between a country they don't know and a country they don't feel they belong in, which leaves them full of rage and a sense of hopeless injustice which might never be set right.
The eponymous story introduces the two protagonists, Kim and Vinh. They were both raised in foster homes and grew up together, and form an uneasy relationship. Although outwardly tough, Kim long for familiarity and acceptance, which is why she stays with Vinh despite not wanting to owe him anything; everything changes when she sees an older Vietnamese woman at a small, local store, and thorough a small act of kindness becomes convinced that she could be her birth mother. After observing the woman for a while Kim tries to become closer to her, which leads her to hopes which set up in motion a chain of events which she might not be able to stop.
Vinh is a protagonist in another story, though we discover him via the eyes of another character, we gain a better understanding of his personality and the anger which drives him, which leads to a shocking conclusion. Emancipation is the story of Mai, who has just turned 18 years old; contrary to Vinh and Kim, Mai has been raised by a foster family, which leaves her with a sense of guilt about being privileged over her best friends. At the same time Mai can't help but feel dissatisfied with the experience of a foster family, longing to be a real daughter to real parents.

Not every character is Vietnamese, and not every story takes place in America. In Gates of Saigon, Hoa has to make a choice: evacuate her two sons from falling Saigon to uncertain future in a distant country, or wait for even more uncertain return of her husband from war? Bound is the story of Bridget, an American volunteer who helps take care of children in Vietnam at the cost of her deteriorating marriage and relationship with her own daughter. In Motherland, Huan, adopted son of an American GI travels to Vietnam on a trip with his adoptive family and Mai, his friend, where they try to reconcile their experiences and form a sense of closure by visiting the old orphanages where they grew up.

We Should Never Meet is a well written collection and an impressive debut for its author, who was just 26 at the time of publication. If the subject matter interest you, I would also like to recommend Robert Olen Butler's A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, which is a collection of stories about Vietnamese immigrants and refugees and their experiences of post-war life in America, for which the author has been justly awarded a Pulitzer Prize.