Mar 29 2023
The “Real Personages” of The Sympathizer
The author writes about the real people who appear in his forthcoming novel, The Sympathizer.
I received the copyedited manuscript of my novel today. Attached to it was a style sheet where the copyeditor had made some interesting lists drawn from my novel, including key words (“chastity-locked,” “Great American novel, the,” “goddammit,” “scotch,” and “whiskey” were among them), a timeline, character names, and “real personages” that appear in the novel.
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So here are those real personages, who together foreshadow many of the novel’s concerns:
Baudelaire
Beauvoir, Simone de
Borgnine, Ernest
Brando, Marlon
Buttinger, Joseph (Vietnam scholar)
Capone, Al
Chandler, Raymond
Chernyshevsky, Nikolay
Coburn, James (actor)
Columbus, Christopher
Coward, Noël
Crosby, Bing
Davis, Angela
Didion, Joan
Duc Huy (Vietnamese singer)
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
FitzGerald, Frances (Vietnam War journalist; won Pulitzer)
Fonda, Jane
Ford, Gerald
Ford, Tennessee Ernie (singer)
Gable, Clark
Gabor, Zsa Zsa
Gardner, Erle Stanley (author, Perry Mason)
Gauguin, Paul
Goebbels, Joseph
Guevara, Che
Hayworth, Rita
Hedren, Tippi (actress)
Hepburn, Audrey
Heston, Charlton
Ho Chi Minh
Holden, William (actor)
Holiday, Billie
Hope, Bob
Joplin, Janis
Khanh Ly (Vietnamese pop singer)
Lee, Bruce
Lenin, V. I.
Loren, Sophia
Mao, Chairman
Marcos, Imelda
Marcos, Ferdinand
Marx, Karl
Mitchum, Robert
Murphy, Audie (decorated soldier, WWII)
Ngo Dinh Diem (first president of South Vietnam)
Nguyen Du (Vietnamese poet)
Nin, Anaïs
Nixon, Richard
Pham Duy (Vietnamese songwriter)
Phan Boi Chau (Vietnamese nationalist)
Phuong, Elvis (Vietnamese pop singer)
Presley, Elvis
Reagan, Ronald
Rooney, Mickey
Sinatra, Frank
Springfield, Dusty
Summer, Donna
Taylor, James
Thich Nhat Hanh
Thieu, President
To Huu (Vietnamese poet)
Trinh Cong Son (folk singer)
Wayne, John
West, Mae
Whitman, Walt
Williams, Hank
Williams, Tennessee
Category: Essays
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6 Comments
The war in Vietnam was /is a milestone in my life. As an anti war American having graduated high school in 1964 and just recently visited Vietnam for the first time. This book is a revelation, filled with the hard truths that we failed to understand about the war, the American’s role and the disastrous effects on the Vietnamese people.
Thank you so much for this incredible book.
Thanks, Nan Merritt, for your kind comments about The Sympathizer. I’m glad the book was meaningful for you.
Just read your oped in the NYT. It presents a nuanced position on the war. Personally I was opposed and left the States in ’69. Your family left Vietnam as refugees somewhat later. But the military industrial establishment continues.
Thanks for your comment, Mr. Hillstrom. While forty years have elapsed, it does seem that war remains embedded in American society.
Thank you for your work. And congratulations!!
Thanks for the thoughtful post on the limits of the Caputo review. It does indeed overlook a great deal of writing by Vietnamese and Vietnamese Americans, including Tran Van Dinh, Le Ly Hayslip, Monique Truong, Andrew Lam, Andrew X. Pham, lê thi diem thúy, Nam Le, Vincent Lam and Kim Thuy (they’re Canadian but at least North American), Aimee Phan, Dao Strom, Nguyen Qui Duc, Mai Elliot, Lan Cao, Barbara Tran, Truong Tran, Mong Lan.