HOME Book Discussion Group: Beth Nguyen's Owner of a Lonely Heart

3 sessions, 7-8 pm:
October 19, 2023 - Chapter 1 to 3
November 16, 2023 - Chapter 4 to 6
December 21, 2023 - Chapter 7 to end

Fee: Free.
Registration: This discussion takes place via Zoom; advance registration required. Click here to register.

The Lynden/HOME Refugee Steering Committee book discussion group, moderated by Lynden’s Kim Khaira, is for those interested in firsthand accounts of displacement. We consider works of non-fiction and fiction, including autobiographical and semi-autobiographical works, by writers who have faced or are facing forced displacement as refugees, asylum seekers, and immigrants. Where stories of persecution, historical trauma, and loss of livelihood are effortlessly conveyed by storytellers, journalists, and humanitarians who search out or stumble upon the lives of refugees, we seek out the words of those to whom these stories belong: the narrators who are the closest to their own stories, and the stories of their people, friends, family and, of course, refugees. Starting in October 2023, we read Beth Nguyen's Owner Of A Lonely Heart: A Memoir (2023).

At the end of the Vietnam War, when Beth Nguyen was eight months old, she and her father, sister, grandmother, and uncles fled Saigon for America. 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 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, sometimes with her mother alone and sometimes with her sister—Beth tells a coming-of-age story that spans her own Midwestern childhood, her first meeting with her mother, and becoming a parent herself. Vivid and illuminating, Owner of a Lonely Heart is a deeply personal story of family, connection, and belonging: as a daughter, a mother, and as a Vietnamese refugee in America.

We encourage you to read each section in advance (see information below on acquiring the current book). Then join us for a virtual discussion moderated by Lynden’s Kim Khaira. The group meets monthly, and we seek the input of group members on titles to consider in the future. With a modest reading pace, the group takes three to four sessions to read and discuss a chosen title, so newcomers are welcome and encouraged to join at any point!

As part of our HOME work at Lynden, we are making the book available without charge to book discussion group participants. If you would like us to purchase a copy of the book for you, please indicate this when completing the registration form. We will contact you when the book is available and you will be able to pick it up at the Lynden Sculpture Garden, 2145 West Brown Deer Road, Milwaukee, WI 53217. If a digital or audiobook is preferred, please contact kkhaira@lyndensculpturegarden.org for more details.

PREVIOUS READINGS
Dina Nayeri's The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You January-February, 2021
Kao Kalia Yang's Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir March-May, 2021
Emmanuel Mbolela's Refugee: A Memoir June-August, 2021
The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives, Edited by Viet Thanh Nguyen, September-December, 2021
Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Admiring Silence January- April, 2022
Homeira Qaderi’s Dancing in the Mosque May-August, 2022
Sonya Bilocerkowycz’s On Our Way Home from the Revolution: Reflections on Ukraine September-December, 2022
Reyna Grande’s The Distance Between Us January-May, 2023
Saeed Teebi’s Her First Palestinian June-September 2023