“This is our room, without any bullet,” he writes. This is our bed on which only minutes before the incident I sat next to her and enjoyed watching the two children playing.”

In 1947, the French were in the process of trying to reclaim their former colony, a region that they referred to as “Annam” or “Indochina” or “Indochine,” anything but the proper name of the land according to the ones who lived there: Việt Nam. 

Starting in 1940, the Japanese briefly controlled the region, but with the end of World War II in 1945, Hồ Chí Minh seized the opportunity and declared independence from France in a document that bore a striking similarity to the American Declaration of Independence. This spurred military action from the French that led to the Franco-Vietnamese War, which would last until their eventual defeat in 1954 at the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ. 

It was during this effort to recolonize Việt Nam for France that my grandparents left the city of Nam Định for a country estate, hoping to avoid the bombings that were expected to occur in the summer of ’47. They settled into country life with their two young sons, a 3-year-old (my father) and a 1-year-old (my uncle), and tried to carry on their lives without fear of the enemy. But fate intervened, and a French air strike on this civilian estate in the countryside would lead to the death of my grandmother (who was 27 years old at the time) and my 1-year-old uncle. 

To process the enormity of his grief, my grandfather composed a letter in French that he titled “Le livre de mon fils,” about my grandmother and the events that led to her tragic death. The letter was translated into Vietnamese and kept in the family archives for 35 years, until 1982. It only reached my father after he reconnected with his mother’s family. My grandfather had died 10 years earlier, and when my father read this letter intended for him, it was like receiving a message from the beyond.

My father translated the letter into English, and I encountered it when I was 19 years old. It is not an exaggeration to say that it shaped me. Recently, I wrote a novel inspired by my grandfather’s letter, called The Three Daughters of Annam, in which I imagined the life of my grandmother and her closest friends and community, and reckoned with the legacy of war on her descendants. The novel explores how it can take generations to heal from trauma and to fully restore one’s sense of the goodness of humanity.

I have often wondered whether my father’s life would have been different if he received the letter as a young man, rather than as a man of nearly 40 years old. Reading the letter changed my life for the better. It allowed me to see the essential role of human emotion and it allowed me to understand the value of writing as a means of expression. 

Perhaps my father, who for most of my childhood lived in a shroud of troubled silence, could have experienced the same catharsis had he known of this letter as a 10-year-old refugee, fleeing the North of Việt Nam after the French defeat; or as an 18-year-old student, coming to the United States on scholarship; or as a 27-year-old chemical researcher, starting to become serious about an American woman he would one day marry. It would not have prevented his suffering, but it could have deepened his familial connections and allowed him to express that suffering, to share it with those he loved.

My grandmother was by all accounts emotionally self-aware, charitable towards others and extraordinarily self-possessed. In her short life, she left an indelible impression upon those who knew her. In writing The Three Daughters of Annam, I have taken up what my grandfather called his “sacred duty” to pass on her legacy. 

Below, read an excerpt from my grandfather’s letter, “Le livre de mon fils.”

Such sudden breakage in my life has driven home the contrast between the present loneliness and togetherness of those days. The first half of my life is still alive in my memory, and around me everything reminds me of those peaceful and innocent days.

This is our room, without any bullet, if we all had remained here we would have been intact. This is our bed on which only minutes before the incident I sat next to her and enjoyed watching the two children playing. I still remember the cute face of baby Hùng, each time his big brother took his toy or teased him, he would look at me, a meaningful look, asking me to interfere on his behalf; in front of such innocent and fair face, both lost and angry, I could not help laughing. Usually to please your little brother I pretended to spank you by slapping the bed and saying “chừa” repeatedly and your brother’s face would brighten up with a satisfied smile. Many times your little brother got more bold; he would imitate me, the two hands slapped on the bed and said “chừa,” “chừa” with a serious face of a scolding superior, he would then look very funny, and you also burst out laughing.

This is the sewing basket in which are folded clothes of the two children which my wife was sewing when the planes arrived. My wife likes to dress the children as she liked to dress up herself, so she liked to sew arty clothes for the children. She sewed very nicely, having an artistic bent, nimble fingers and especially devoted concentration. Presently looking at a needle with a long thread stuck in a piece of white cloth, I think of her clever hand that was holding that needle and then a short while later died for no apparent reason. Such an association caused a pain in my chest. 

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When opening my leather case, I saw an “ABC” book neatly placed in a small compartment. She had bought that book, and put it away in order to soon start teaching her first son. With boundless ambition and love, she took the time to bind and cover that book which will initiate her children. Heavens, if she had known her fate she would have given me countless advice on how to teach her orphaned child to become a good human being, the child that, when a few budding qualities showed themselves, had already made her proud and happy.

Each object found in the room brought me countless memories both fond and tragic, and caused my tears to stream down. This is the red notebook she used for writing down the household matters. There is the song book in which she copied by hand the new songs that she was practicing; over there in her purse are some boxes of powder and perfume which sometimes when going out she would use modestly; in the suitcase are her and the baby’s clothes, the folds still seem to retain the image and gesture of the two precious people. Countless little things are still warm with her touch, absorbed by her diligence. 

Having cried a lot over the aura of the inanimate objects, I have to stop looking through things to go outside to get fresh air; now I arrive at the path near the large pond where we used to take after-dinner walks in the cool evening air and near-darkness, she carrying the little baby and I leading the hand of his big brother. Today the landscape is no different than in our last walk on the day before the accident. Fireflies flash from bush to bush, hanging on the pitch dark bamboo hedge far away; frogs in the ponds and rice paddies try to outdo one another with their hoarse songs. The air today is also very much like that evening, the same nocturnal lightness, the same rich fragrance of those flowers, the same indifference of nature toward human grief. In the sky the same stars, each one remains in its place from the beginning of time, glimmering as if to mock our tiny mankind that would try to conquer the world; to the East a thin crescent has appeared amidst the dark clouds, this moon has risen how many times, for how many thousands of millions of years; an old poet said: “Sky and earth remain as of old, only SHE is no more.”

Only the other day, also on this path, also in this light, we conversed lovingly, often about people and our plans, about the future of our children whom we called “our precious pearls.” We considered ourselves fortunate to have overcome many dangers while in the South, and we were confident that such luck would follow us until the end of the war. Not for an instant did we expect that one day our little family would be torn apart, right at the time we thought coming here was to avoid danger and it was only a matter of waiting it out before going back to the cities.

Nevertheless, to prepare for a lengthened war, we were very thrifty; no impulse buying, or entertainment to distract from the bitterness of life. A week before her death, she got the idea of going out to swim at the ocean beach, but that decision was put off and now she is no longer of this world. 

In my later life, each time my fortune improves, it would pain me to regret that when she was alive I did not make her happy. If I could exchange everything I have now as well as what I will accumulate in the future for their two precious lives I would not hesitate. For me, right now, what is the meaning of wealth, when happiness has already left? I pray to the heavens to make me poor but leave my wife and children healthy by my side, and I will labor to support them — I do not wish for anything more.

But I have to admit even though I did realize I had happiness, having such a good wife and healthy and beautiful children, I never did understand happiness more clearly than right now when I have lost it. Sometimes in those days because of some petty pride we argued, each held on to one’s own viewpoint in vain stubbornness, and since she had a lot of feelings she would become sad and pensive.

But those arguments were never about money matters, and in the final analysis, it was due to the powerful love we have for each other. Usually those arguments ended in tears, and we made up very quickly. But those arguments wasted the precious time we lived together. If I knew she would die early I would have avoided causing her sadness, and I would have held her with care and love.

Right now I have fallen to the ground and am still feeling immeasurable pain, but with some time, the pain should slowly decrease, and I might get used to the tragedy of my life. My heart and my conscience become furious at the thought of “getting used to it.” I consider it a negligence of duty toward my wife and child to stop suffering. I would like to hang on to my suffering; it has become as dear to me as the unfortunate ones I am crying over; and strangely this suffering is like a warm corner for me to seek refuge in, away from the cruelties of life.

In any case, time will slowly erase the sadness in my heart, and in the future I probably will not feel the burning thoughts which are presently tumbling in my head. For this reason, dear son, I hurry to write down now the thoughts, the feelings which rise and fall like waves in my soul, which form a complicated psychology which few people live through and have the chance to analyze.

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When I put down on paper my sufferings and offer them to our departed loved ones I feel I have fulfilled my sacred duty to them. Written words become unchangeable sentences, all the turbulence of the soul of the moment would seem to freeze to eternity.

My dear son, when you read these words, you will understand my suffering after the tragedy of my life; you will also relive the burdened days which I am going through right now; and the first meaningful tears of your life will flood your youthful cheekbones.

My son, it is good to cry. Suffering has a cleansing and ennobling effect. Feeling is the flame of the soul, it illuminates us, and it sparks grand ideas. It is the source of goodness, of humanity, and conscience. Remember the mother you are now crying over, only due to her compassion that she could have done a lot of good deeds which others could not.

The Three Daughters of Annam by Phong Nguyen will hit shelves on Dec. 8 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.

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