A profound, startling, and beautifully crafted debut novel, The Sympathizer is the story of a man of two minds, someone whose political beliefs clash with his individual loyalties.

The Sympathizer got few low marks from NUBClub, although some people loved it and some didn't. What no one could argue with was that Nguyen is an amazing stylist. The book is lush with rich descriptions and clever dialogue. It's just a beautiful piece of writing as writing. The issue that split the group was the plot. The pacing of this story of a double-agent hiding in South Vietnamese communities was certainly slow, and to enjoy the novel, you really have to enjoy the interior monologue of the main character as he acts as a spy under an-ex General in the States, works on a film, and then decides against orders to return to Vietnam. Things certainly happen -- the ex-pat culture has a lot of romance and intrigue, the study of the film is fascinating in its biased look at a Vietnamese culture, and certainly the return to Vietnam is fraught with interesting complexity and condemnation of the hypocrisies of the revolution. But it's a long novel to get to those points, and there is a lot of interior reflection on these events filling that gap. The enjoyment of the book is basically how much you enjoy the monologue. The Nub Clubbers less interested in the style and voice found it plodding; the NUBClubbers who got into the style found the observations and interior monologue the best part. It's perhaps safe to say that this is a book about the unnamed main character's voice, and how much enjoyment you get out of it is how much you enjoy the novel. It's certainly not bad, but YMMV based on how much the prose moves you.