Wandering Souls

January 16, 2023
Pin follows three refugees out of Vietnam to England in her powerful debut. In 1978, Thi Anh, 16, and two younger brothers, Minh and Thanh, survive the treacherous journey to Hong Kong, but their parents and four younger siblings drown, events prefigured in Pin’s matter-of-fact opening line: “There are the goodbyes and then the fishing out of the bodies—everything in between is speculation.” Anh is bitter about her uncle in the U.S., who urged her family to flee and told them stories of his life in New Haven, Conn., and lies to aid workers, saying they have no family abroad. Months later, they are resettled in Sopley, England, and struggle to adjust while waiting for public housing. As the years pass, Anh works in a garment factory, Minh and Thanh progress through school with varying degrees of success—Minh drops out and deals drugs, Thanh finishes his A-levels, but abandons his plans for university, fearing his grades aren’t good enough for scholarships. Pin smoothly juggles Anh’s narrative with snippets of speeches and news reports that provide conflicting views of Margaret Thatcher’s policies toward refugees, as well chapters from the perspectives of the ghost of a younger brother, refugees who are sexually assaulted in Thailand, and a narrator—unidentified until the end—who feels great pressure to do justice to their family’s experiences. With concision and clarity, the author shows a deep understanding of how upheaval can splinter families.