The Best We Could Do

 By Thi Bui

Abrams Comicarts     2018

344 pages     Graphic Memoir    

Not too long ago, I was exposed to the concept of inherited trauma, identified in the children and grandchildren of holocaust survivors. (Here is an article that discusses the concept.) Certainly the graphic memoir The Best We Could Do perfectly describes inherited trauma. The book is a fascinating look at Thi Bui’s family history leading up to their migration from Viet Nam to the United States and the years following their arrival. Notes on the book suggest that the book is about “the search for a better future and a longing for the past.” She indicated that the stories her parents told her “cast a shadow over her life.” Creating this graphic memoir helped her make sense of the trauma, and when she had her own son, she intended to filter out the trauma “so she could pass on something cleaner.”

Thi Bui is an illustrator and writer, best known for this haunting memoir, which is the Kalamazoo Public Library Community Read for 2022. It is a fascinating choice, and the author will be in Kalamazoo in March. The Best We Could Do tells the story of Bui’s birth and early years in war-torn Viet Nam and the family’s daring escape after the fall of South Viet Nam in the 1970s. In part, the narrative helps Thi Bui understand her father’s mental health  issues as well as her own struggles as a new mother. By drawing the story of her mother’s life, she probes deeply into the divisions that society creates. By seeking to remember the family’s struggles adapting to culture of the United States, she appreciates the bubble her parents created to keep the Vietnamese culture alive in their children’s lives. All of this Bui tells through compelling pictures and poetic text.

The illustrated memoir is the perfect vehicle for Bui to tell her story. She is greatly talented and I could not take my eyes off the pictures. In an interview with NPR, Bui says she sought to “weave the personal and the political and the historical to tell a story of the Viet Nam War and all the things that caused it, in a way that I felt like I hadn’t seen before.” Indeed she has done just that. The story of the war is compelling, in part because it comes from the Vietnamese perspective rather than the American soldier perspective.

I also was very intrigued by the comparison of The Best We Could Do with Art Spiegelman’s Maus. Currently Maus and the retelling of the trauma of the Holocaust is the brunt of a censorship battle in public schools across the country, and I am curious to know if Bui’s book could undergo the same kind of scrutiny. Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis faced the same kind of scrutiny in 2012, and I wrote about the banning  here and here. I am hopeful that this book can get through the community read events without facing censorship. I had thought that my 10-year-old granddaughter who loves graphic novels, would read it with me and then attend the presentation with me, but as I read the book, I realized that perhaps 5^th grade is a little early for the book, although I think it would be very appropriate for middle and high school students.

My trip in 2018 to Vietnam and Cambodia was an eye-opening experience for me, primarily in the understanding of resilience and growth. The Vietnamese are beautiful people, and as they are presented by Thi Bui, worthy of all that the world can offer them.  I highly recommend The Best We Could Do.