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The Beauty of Humanity Movement
Camilla Gibb
Penguin Press
March 2011
On Sale: March 21, 2011
320 pages ISBN: 159420280X EAN: 9781594202803 Hardcover
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Fiction
This deeply observed novel of contemporary Vietnam
interweaves stories of a venerable soup seller, a young
Vietnamese American curator, and an enterprising tour guide
in ways that will mark all of their lives forever. Maggie, an art curator who is Vietnamese by birth but who
has lived most of her life in the United States, has
returned to her country of origin in search of clues to her
dissident father's disappearance. She remembers him only in
fragments, as an injured artist from whom she and her
mother were separated during the war. In her journey,
Maggie finds herself at a makeshift pho stall, where the
rich aroma of beef noodle soup lures people off Hanoi's
busy streets and into a quiet morning ritual. Old Man Hung, the enlightened proprietor of the beloved pho
stall, has survived decades of poverty and political
upheaval. Hung once had a shop that served as a meeting
place for dissident artists. As Maggie discovers, this old
man may hold the key to both her past and her future. Among Hung's most faithful customers is Tu', a dynamic
young tour guide who works for a company called New Dawn.
Tu' leads tourists through the city, including American
vets on war tours, but he has begun to wonder what it is
they are seeing of Vietnam-and what they miss entirely. In
Maggie, he finds a young Americanized woman in search of
something quite different, leading him beyond his realm of
expertise. In sensual, interwoven narratives, Maggie, Hung,
and Tu' come together in a highly charged season that will
mark all of them forever. The Beauty of Humanity Movement is a skillfully
wrought novel about the reverberation of conflict through
generations, the enduring legacy of art, and the redemption
and renewal of love. The story of these characters is
tinged with longing for worlds and loved ones lost but also
filled with the hope that faith can heal the pain of their
shared country's turbulent past. This is the distinct and
complex story of contemporary Vietnam, a country undergoing
momentous change, and a story of how family is defined-not
always by bloodlines, but by heart.
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