Paul Eggers s stories examine the moral arena created by the existence of refugees. Some are stories about literal refugees, those displaced in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, and about those who would help them. Others are about refugees in a metaphoric sensepeople alternately bullied and bullying, exiled from sources of power, caught in moments when the familiar gives way. In The Year Five, Nguyen Van Trinh, one of the boat people who left Vietnam after the war, is living in a squalid refugee camp on Bidong Island. He ...
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Paul Eggers s stories examine the moral arena created by the existence of refugees. Some are stories about literal refugees, those displaced in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, and about those who would help them. Others are about refugees in a metaphoric sensepeople alternately bullied and bullying, exiled from sources of power, caught in moments when the familiar gives way. In The Year Five, Nguyen Van Trinh, one of the boat people who left Vietnam after the war, is living in a squalid refugee camp on Bidong Island. He is as powerless to repress his sorrow over his daughter s death as the Malaysian administrative chief of the island is to find out who carved Trinh s name into the wooden plank in the staff eating hut. In The Public Spectacle, Bridget and Owen Greef, two misfits, have been growing apart because of his obsession with chess and Bobby Fischer. They both must come to terms with the fact that they areas a couple and as individualspermanent outsiders. In Anything You Want, Please, Peace Corps trainee Reuben Gill is led into the malevolent presence of long-term jungle junkie (and Peace Corps volunteer) Geronimo Donaldson s companion monkey. In this alien place, Gill finds himself struggling against his own worst impulses, beginning to doubt the strength of his commitment to his stateside fiancee."
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