Owner of a Lonely Heart: A Memoir of Motherhood and Absence

By: Beth Nguyen

Sign Up Now! Already a Member? Log In
You must be logged into Bookshare to access this title. Learn about membership options, or view our freely available titles.

Synopsis: Named a Best Memoir of 2023 by Oprah Daily • Selected by Time, NPR, and BookPage as a Best Book of 2023 &“This book…is what memoir writing in the hands of a caring, curious wunderkind can be.&” —Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy From the award-winning author of Stealing Buddha&’s Dinner, a powerful memoir of a mother-daughter relationship fractured by war and resettlement.At the end of the Vietnam War, when Beth Nguyen was eight months old, she and her family fled Saigon for America. Only Beth&’s mother stayed—or was left—behind, and they did not meet again until Beth was nineteen. Over the course of her adult life, she and her mother have spent less than twenty-four hours together. Owner of a Lonely Heart is &“a portrait of things left unsaid&” (The New York Times), a memoir about parenthood, absence, and the condition of being a refugee: the story of Beth&’s relationship with her mother. Framed by a handful of visits over the course of many years—sometimes brief, sometimes interrupted, some alone with her mother and others with the company of her sister—Beth tells an &“unforgettable&” (People) coming-of-age story that spans her childhood in the Midwest, her first meeting with her mother, and her own experience of parenthood.