Tom Lynch

In 1975, U.S. Operation Babylift became the biggest exercise of humanitarian aid of the twentieth century, as the country evacuated more than 2,000 children and infants from Vietnam just before the fall of Saigon. These kids went through horrors during the transfer, from abusive refugee camps to toxic foster homes once in the U.S. They were often referred to as bui doi, "the dust of life." It wouldn't take a massive gust to blow them away.

Aimee Phan's debut book of short stories, "We Should Never Meet," chronicles the journey of Operation Babylift and examines the aftermath. Phan uses four of eight stories to follow the trip of one orphan, told from different perspectives from those involved, including a Catholic nun and a social worker from Saigon. The other four stories are set twenty years post-evacuation and document the lives of four Babylift survivors: Kim, searching for her mother; Vinh the gang lord; Mai, the unclaimed orphan; and Huan, who returns to Vietnam with his adoptive mother.

Phan links these tales with believable ease, and proves to be a person possibly too close to the material, as her mother was involved with the operation nearly thirty years ago. The material is inherently catastrophic, so when Phan breaks down to minimalist prose for dramatic emphasis, the effect is uncomfortably disturbing and excessive. Yet her point is powerfully made and brings light to a controversial time in our history, when people made mistakes and rarely tried to fix them. Not only does Phan present the material in an intriguing, unexpected manner, she also takes advantage of the outright drama of the subject matter, but without diving deep into tepid melodrama.

Phan, a young writer (she was born in 1977), delivers a strong debut, personalized by her compassion for the subject matter. She received the Maytag Fellowship and has an MFA from the University of Iowa, two accomplishments she notes first on her acknowledgement page. Her view of contemporary Vietnamese-American life rings of true originality, and her book's examination of tragedy and hope illuminate a lifetime of forgotten promises.

"We Should Never Meet"
by Aimee Phan
St. Martin's Press, $22.95, 243 pages

(2004-09-08)

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