"At the end of the Vietnam War, when Beth Nguyen was eight months old, she and her father, sister, grandmother, and uncles fled Saigon for America. Beth’s mother stayed—or was left—behind, and they did not meet again until Beth was nineteen. Over the course of her adult life, she and her mother have spent less than twenty-four hours together. Owner of a Lonely Heart is a memoir about parenthood, absence, and the condition of being a refugee:...

Linny and Van Luong are two second generation Vietnamese immigrant sisters. Linny, the youngest, is pretty and popular but trapped in a cycle of dead-end jobs and hopeless affairs. Van, plain and socially awkward, is an over-achieving immigration lawyer with a seemingly picture-perfect marriage. The sisters have been locked in a relationship of mutual disdain for as long as they can remember. When their eccentric elderly father, inventor of the 'Luong...