Houston Southard
a name that looks so fake you'll care just as little to learn it's not
VIET THANH NGUYEN - THE SYMPATHIZER
Remember when scared little America was so self-righteously dick hard about eradicating atheist communists we tried it in Vietnam and got our asses justifiably beat? This book isn't about that. It's not about the war we started with a lie or how we got everything we deserved. It's not about our imperialistic god complex warmongers being bitch slapped into submission. It's not about the USofA getting a wake up call that they didn't calculate military might quite right. There are plenty of books about that.
No, Nguyen here won his Pulitzer for fictionalizing a triple agent who understood all sides. It's about how someone becomes sympathetic to their enemy's goals. Namely, by being an outsider. Vietnamese born with french blood (because France owned Vietnam before we swung our phallic standard at it), the narrator feels for the booga booga northern communists, for the southern allies, and yes, even for the napalm-aroused GI Joes.
The style is as refreshing as the content. Written in a letter to his espionage handler POV, I don't think there's a single quotation mark in the book. It's a love story, a coming of age journey and most notably a thought-provoking analysis of mid century western culture through the lens of the immigrants our country only lays claim to when there’s something in it for them. Nguyen for the win.