On Marie Claire's "The Best Memoirs of 2020 Are Too Good Not to Read”
"The best, the funniest, and the most heartfelt memoir of the year." —BookPage (starred review)
Kirkus "13 Diverse Nonfiction Books to Read Now"
BookPage "27 Asian and Pacific American authors to read this May"
"In actuality and on the pages of this memoir, Tran's life goes off-road, defies reading plans or most other kinds of plans. Which makes SIGH, GONE a congenial read for our chaotic time." —Maureen Corrigan, NPR Fresh Air
"The book powerfully explores themes of assimilation, racism, complex and abusive family dynamics, and the challenge of coming into one’s own. In other words, Sigh, Gone is like all great works of literature — it asks big questions, universal in their specificity." —LA Review of Books
"Tran also makes his narrating debut—prefaced by an actual drumroll, yes!—with energy, empathy, and plenty of curse words, as he shares his no-holds-barred coming-of-age journey in small-town Carlisle, Pennsylvania." —Booklist (starred review for audiobook)
"[Sigh, Gone] recounts in stunning detail [Tran's] coming of age in white, small-town America... [and] in laying out his childhood around themes and metaphors, Tran makes his own Great American Memoir." —The Seattle Times
"A heartfelt and ambitious memoir." —Tobias Carroll, Portland Press Herald
"Affecting, deeply-felt...a compelling story of an outsider discovering himself and a world where he fit in." —Booklist (starred review)
"Funny, poignant, and unsparing, Tran’s sharp, sensitive, punk-inflected memoir presents one immigrant’s quest for self-acceptance through the lens of American and European literary classics. A highly witty and topical read—an impressive debut." —Kirkus (starred review)
"A powerful memoir that proves the transformative power of music and literature.... Tender and even comic, it is, in his own words, ‘a misfit’s memoir,’ exchanging estrangement and adversity for hard-won accomplishment." —Center for Fiction, "Lose Yourself in These Riveting Personal Narratives"
"Filled with euphoric flights of discovery, this complex and rewarding story of a book-enriched life vividly illustrates how literature can serve as a window to a new life." —Publishers Weekly
"Sigh, Gone is more likely to launch a broken down kid on a mission to read 150 great books—for free, at the local library. Put Phuc Tran's book in the hands of a bunch of teenage punks goofing off in English class and see what they do with it." —PopMatters
"[A] funny heartbreaker... this wry and unsparing coming-of-age memoir recaps the tumultuous childhood and turbulent adolescence of a bookish Vietnamese immigrant raised in a blue-collar American town." —Shelf Awareness
"Sigh, Gone provides a vivid and eye-opening look at yet another legacy of the American War in Vietnam: what life was like for Vietnamese children and their families who escaped from their homeland and were transplanted in small-town U.S.A." —The Veteran
"The best, the funniest and the most heartfelt memoir of the year.... Sigh, Gone filters the archetypal high school misfit story through the lens of immigration and assimilation, building it into a larger narrative about the ways music and books can bring us together, even when the larger world threatens to tear us apart." —BookPage (starred review)
"Riveting." —The Lincoln Star
“The United States was already a better country because Phuc Tran refused to change his name. Then he went even further in changing this country by giving us this bold, funny, and profane memoir: a portrait of a young punk refugee and of heartland America itself, each of them as defiant and compelling as the other.” —Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of Pulitzer-Prize winning The Sympathizer and The Refugees
"I like to think that had I been born a much cooler, male, Vietnamese version of myself, Sigh, Gone is the book I would have written. This glorious memoir is a reminder of the transformative power of literature and a tribute to friendships, music, and the unique kindness of Americans. I loved it!" —Firoozeh Dumas, New York Times bestselling author of Funny in Farsi and Laughing Without An Accent
"I started reading this book and couldn’t stop. Phuc Tran has written the Great American Nerd-Punk Boyhood Memoir, a story that’s rollicking and laugh-out-loud funny while also offering a piercingly profound look at race, the challenges of assimilation, and the inherently defiant act of growing up. Earnest, observant, and diamond-sharp, this is a new voice of unmistakable talent. I’ll follow this writer anywhere." —Sara Corbett, coauthor of New York Times best-selling A House in the Sky
"In Sigh, Gone, Phuc Tran offers a searing, trenchant, and hilarious chronicle of adolescence. His memoir seethes with all the shame and rage, loneliness and longing borne from cultural dislocation; thrums with all the fears and half-truths, anti-triumphs, and confused desires of that vicious and necessary American journey we call 'assimilation'. With this book, Tran not only puts himself on the literary map: he rips the map to pieces and tapes it back together as he—forever the bookish young punk—sees fit. The result: a refugee story of the most modern kind, told entirely on the author's own terms." —Jaed Coffin, author of Roughhouse Friday
"I want to gift this book to my witty friends, my well-read friends, my punk friends, and my Asian American friends. I also want to gift it to my witty, well-read, punk, Asian-American friend who will be so thrilled to know that a book has finally been written to show the world that, yes, we can be all these things. All at once, in all its mash-up glory. Sigh, Gone is a painfully—and I mean painfully—funny book that seems to have collected all our best and worst memories, and turned them into a story told by a smart narrator who will not let us go. His voice will grab you by the hand, but also by your you-know-what, and remind you that for many of us, childhood was really no laughing matter." —Cinelle Barnes, author of Monsoon Mansion
"Sigh, Gone is a memoir reminiscent of Peter Orner and Michael Patrick MacDonald, a journey of self-discovery, humanizing experiences, and connections made through the punk rock counter culture and the thrills of being a life long reader. This is a powerfully entertaining and inspirational delight."—Tim Huggins, bookseller at Brookline Booksmith
11/11/2019
This high-impact, emotional memoir about growing up in a Vietnamese immigrant family refracts the author’s angry adolescence through a prism of classic literature. Tran, now a high school Latin teacher, escaped the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975. One of the only Asian kids in the blue-collar town of Carlisle, Pa., Tran felt like an outsider. Falling in with “a wolfpack” of punk skaters partially satisfied his desire for belonging. But discovering Clifton Fadiman’s The Lifetime Reading Plan, with its lists of must-read books—Crime and Punishment, Madame Bovary, The Autobiography of Malcolm X—sparked his imagination. Books also provided Tran a refuge from the gap between himself and his parents, who he portrays in colorfully unsparing terms, from his mother’s “muscular, if simple, Catholicism” to his father’s habit of beating him with a metal rod scavenged from the garbage: “American efficiency, meet Vietnamese ingenuity.” Being well-read for Tran signified “the promise of acceptance and connection and prestige,” and by book’s end he enters adulthood as his own person and not just as an immigrant or rebel. Filled with euphoric flights of discovery, this complex and rewarding story of a book-enriched life vividly illustrates how literature can serve as a window to a new life. (Apr.)
12/01/2019
Tran takes readers on a personal journey through his life after resettling to a small town in Pennsylvania from Vietnam following the fall of Saigon. The author describes being harassed by racists, and most important, by attempts to fit in, to be American. Tran's struggle to be accepted is two pronged: he delves into books, reading voraciously, and also restyles his appearance, becoming a "skater kid." His love of classic novels, the "great books" referenced in the book's subtitle, is evident as each chapter title recognizes a book that has influenced his life, and academic success helped Tran adjust to his new life. Tran combines funny moments with heartbreaking stories; his explanations to his parents about why he wants to buy his clothes at Goodwill rather than the mall are laugh-out-loud funny, and readers will respond with compassion as he and his family deal with his mother's cancer diagnosis. VERDICT Tran's engaging prose will connect with readers who ever went through a phase of wishing to fit in, which is pretty much all of us.—Susan E. Montgomery, Rollins Coll., Winter Park, FL
Listen to this if you want to hear what should be one of the best reviewed memoirs of 2020. Tran’s story is an American immigration story, and so much more. His delivery is crisp and engaging, and maintains just the slightest element of whimsy. The memoir traces the Tran family’s remarkable journey from Vietnam to America. It also tells the author’s own journey from punk misfit to college-bound scholar. Each chapter is tied to a classic work of literature, and this conceit works well. Sometimes authors who narrate their work end up being too low-key or, worse, overexuberant. Tran succumbs to neither pitfall. If you’re a fan of memoirs and a fan of literature, this is a must- listen. J.P.S. 2020 Best Audiobook, 2021 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
Listen to this if you want to hear what should be one of the best reviewed memoirs of 2020. Tran’s story is an American immigration story, and so much more. His delivery is crisp and engaging, and maintains just the slightest element of whimsy. The memoir traces the Tran family’s remarkable journey from Vietnam to America. It also tells the author’s own journey from punk misfit to college-bound scholar. Each chapter is tied to a classic work of literature, and this conceit works well. Sometimes authors who narrate their work end up being too low-key or, worse, overexuberant. Tran succumbs to neither pitfall. If you’re a fan of memoirs and a fan of literature, this is a must- listen. J.P.S. 2020 Best Audiobook, 2021 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine
★ 2020-01-02
A high school Latin teacher and tattoo artist's memoir about immigrating to small-town America from Vietnam and learning to fit in through reading, skateboarding, and punk rock.
Tran and his parents fled Saigon as war refugees in 1975, and they eventually settled in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. There, they became the lone Asians in a town that "offered all the rainbows of Caucasia." Local children taunted Tran throughout childhood while neighbors and co-workers saw his parents as amusing curiosities or "symbols of a painful and confusing war…of the people who had shot at them and killed their friends, brothers, and sons." As he neared adolescence, Tran decided that he could solve his problems by trying to "be less Asian." First, he developed "social Teflon" by earning top grades in all his classes, deciding that he "would take nerd props over no props at all." He further learned to deemphasize his otherness by joining the skateboarding subculture as a young teen and adopting a punk persona. Even though he was a good student, however, the author sometimes came up short of parental expectations for perfection, with excruciatingly painful results. During his junior year of high school, he stumbled across a guide to classic literary texts touted as "the foundation for being ‘all-American.' " Eager to assimilate, Tran immersed himself in works like The Metamorphosis and The Importance of Being Earnest. He became more self-reflective and developed an unexpected passion for books, which he highlights by naming each chapter after a favorite work of literature (Madame Bovary, Pygmalion, etc.). At the suggestion of a history teacher, Tran read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which heightened his awareness of white racism toward Asians and of the racism he saw in his own father toward blacks. Funny, poignant, and unsparing, Tran's sharp, sensitive, punk-inflected memoir presents one immigrant's quest for self-acceptance through the lens of American and European literary classics.
A highly witty and topical read—an impressive debut.
