THE NARRATOR'S CIRCUMSTANCES in The Sympathizer are so peculiar that one hesitates to classify it as an immigrant novel. True, a lot of it is set in the United States, and there is a brilliant wedding banquet scene, but it seems more a novel about the war than one about learning to live in a new country.
This collection of short stories (mainly written before the novel, apparently), is about more typical examples of the people who came to the USA, by choice or by necessity, after the war. The trauma of getting here (especially in the first story, "Black-Eyed Women"), the conflict between needing to remember and needing to forget (especially in "War Years"), inter-generational struggles, the church, the ironies of making it, the difficult relationship to the homeland--all the classic themes come up.
Somewhat short of the intellectual punch of The Sympathiser, but more affecting and more tender, certainly. There are glimpses of forgiveness and renewal here, and there is little of either in The Sympathizer.
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