Joshua Gunter, PDLoung Ung, now a co-owner in a Cleveland microbrewry, reflects on her trilogy of memoirs in her Shaker Heights, Ohio home office. She is recovering from a skiing accident three weeks ago in Colorado.Published:Sunday, April 15, 2012
To see the details of the book launch, visit cleveland.com.
When my three daughters were young, they worried over spelling tests, being left out, the monster crouched behind the bedroom door. Their world was small, their place in it certain.
The childhood of Loung Ung was heartbreakingly different. Until she was 5, Ung lived in Phnom Penh, one of seven children with a beautiful mother and adored father. In April, 1975, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge invaded, driving them, along with millions of others, into the remote countryside and a life of grueling labor, near starvation and relentless fear.
"While children elsewhere in the world watched TV, I watched public executions," writes Ung, who lives now in Shaker Heights. In the Cambodian killing fields, bedtime stories contained news of torture and mass graves. Her older sister was marched off to a teen work camp, never to be seen again. At the age of 7, Ung stood outside the family hut and watched the soldiers take her father.
Her memoir, "First They Killed My Father," published in 2000 to widespread acclaim, is a child's eye view of those years, a chilling account of a psyche tattooed with hatred. On the night they take her father, a beautiful, oblivious sunset paints the sky, filling the small girl with a murderous rage -- "I want to destroy all the beautiful things."
Ung's mother forced her and her older siblings out on their own, a seemingly selfish act that Ung cannot forgive. Shortly after, her mother and a younger sister were murdered. In her second volume of memoir, 2006's "Lucky Child," Ung relates how her older brother chose only her to immigrate with him to the United States. Here Ung's own story runs in tandem with that of Chou, a cherished sister they leave behind.
lulu.jpgView full sizeLulu in the Sky, Harper, 330 pp., $15.99, on sale April 17
The final book in her trilogy, "Lulu in the Sky," is Ung's account of forging a new life, painfully hammering past and present into one. Central to her story is Clevelander Mark Priemer, Ung's college sweetheart at St. Michael's in Vermont. A handsome, optimistic man, Priemer embodies the American belief that we hold our identity in our own hands. He sticks by her as she lurches through the decade after graduation, sometimes facing, more often denying, her trauma.
Ung works with abused women who have lost trust in others and learned, as she did when a child, to "see nothing, hear nothing, be nothing." She becomes an activist, campaigning for the removal of landmines.
Psychiatrists agree that separation is a common coping strategy. "This happened to me the day I arrived in America. As I stood at the threshold of my new life . . . someone laid down a giant copy machine in front of me and I climbed into it. Then, out came my copy, and from that day on, I felt disconnected from the girl who caught raindrops on her tongue."
In April, 1998, Ung turns on the television and learns that Pol Pot has died, untried and unpunished. At that moment, the disassociation she has so carefully cultivated crumbles.
Writing her life story ultimately saves her. "With each stroke of my pen, in a kind of exorcism, I killed what I needed to destroy and kept the people I wished had lived alive."
She comes to understand her mother's actions as an effort to save her children. She's able, at last, to risk surrendering her heart. Agreeing to marry Priemer, she writes, "I knew then that without love, the war and soldiers would win their battles for my heart and mind. I did not want those bastards to win."
As the titles indicated, "Lulu in the Sky" is cut from a different cloth than "First They Killed My Father." Healing, while poignant and moving, lacks the visceral urgency of suffering. In places the writing in "Lulu" is uneven.
Yet the arc of this story is more powerful than the words used to tell it. While serious, Ung's voice can brim with mischief. Having eaten dirt as a child, she celebrates the pleasures of food on every other page. This is a woman who downs duck eggs, steamed dumplings and Chunky Monkey ice cream with equal gusto.
Fittingly, "Lulu in the Sky" contains more straightforward history of Cambodia than its two predecessors. In her private search for wholeness, Ung became an expert on the country which, like her, is still recovering. She speaks four languages, and continues as a generous activist and noted speaker on Cambodia, child soldiers and land mines.
A bibliography and other supplemental materials are included.
Tricia Springstubb is a critic in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
Her memoir, "First They Killed My Father," published in 2000 to widespread acclaim, is a child's eye view of those years, a chilling account of a psyche tattooed with hatred. On the night they take her father, a beautiful, oblivious sunset paints the sky, filling the small girl with a murderous rage -- "I want to destroy all the beautiful things."
Ung's mother forced her and her older siblings out on their own, a seemingly selfish act that Ung cannot forgive. Shortly after, her mother and a younger sister were murdered. In her second volume of memoir, 2006's "Lucky Child," Ung relates how her older brother chose only her to immigrate with him to the United States. Here Ung's own story runs in tandem with that of Chou, a cherished sister they leave behind.
lulu.jpgView full sizeLulu in the Sky, Harper, 330 pp., $15.99, on sale April 17
The final book in her trilogy, "Lulu in the Sky," is Ung's account of forging a new life, painfully hammering past and present into one. Central to her story is Clevelander Mark Priemer, Ung's college sweetheart at St. Michael's in Vermont. A handsome, optimistic man, Priemer embodies the American belief that we hold our identity in our own hands. He sticks by her as she lurches through the decade after graduation, sometimes facing, more often denying, her trauma.
Ung works with abused women who have lost trust in others and learned, as she did when a child, to "see nothing, hear nothing, be nothing." She becomes an activist, campaigning for the removal of landmines.
Psychiatrists agree that separation is a common coping strategy. "This happened to me the day I arrived in America. As I stood at the threshold of my new life . . . someone laid down a giant copy machine in front of me and I climbed into it. Then, out came my copy, and from that day on, I felt disconnected from the girl who caught raindrops on her tongue."
In April, 1998, Ung turns on the television and learns that Pol Pot has died, untried and unpunished. At that moment, the disassociation she has so carefully cultivated crumbles.
Writing her life story ultimately saves her. "With each stroke of my pen, in a kind of exorcism, I killed what I needed to destroy and kept the people I wished had lived alive."
She comes to understand her mother's actions as an effort to save her children. She's able, at last, to risk surrendering her heart. Agreeing to marry Priemer, she writes, "I knew then that without love, the war and soldiers would win their battles for my heart and mind. I did not want those bastards to win."
As the titles indicated, "Lulu in the Sky" is cut from a different cloth than "First They Killed My Father." Healing, while poignant and moving, lacks the visceral urgency of suffering. In places the writing in "Lulu" is uneven.
Yet the arc of this story is more powerful than the words used to tell it. While serious, Ung's voice can brim with mischief. Having eaten dirt as a child, she celebrates the pleasures of food on every other page. This is a woman who downs duck eggs, steamed dumplings and Chunky Monkey ice cream with equal gusto.
Fittingly, "Lulu in the Sky" contains more straightforward history of Cambodia than its two predecessors. In her private search for wholeness, Ung became an expert on the country which, like her, is still recovering. She speaks four languages, and continues as a generous activist and noted speaker on Cambodia, child soldiers and land mines.
A bibliography and other supplemental materials are included.
Tricia Springstubb is a critic in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
1 comment:
Her father was club to death by khmer rouge...
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