S6 Ep. 41: Owner of a Lonely Heart: Beth Nguyen on Memoir, Mothering, and Refugeedom

fiction/non/fiction

Novelist and nonfiction writer Beth Nguyen joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to talk about her new memoir, Owner of a Lonely Heart, which is about her separation from and connection to her mother. Nguyen explains how when she came to the U.S. as a refugee, her mother was left behind in Vietnam. She discusses how returning to scenes depicted in her previous memoir, Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, prompted her to reassess and revise her memories of her mother, including their eventual reunion. She also reflects on how becoming a parent herself has shifted her perspectives. She reads from Owner of a Lonely Heart, speaks about the rise in anti-Asian racism, and, finally, turns to the intersection between poetry and nonfiction.

To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/

This episode of the podcast was produced by Rachel Layton and Anne Kniggendorf.

Beth Nguyen

• Owner of a Lonely Heart
• Stealing Buddha’s Dinner
• Pioneer Girl
• Short Girls: A Novel

Others:

• Phillip Lopate
• “Tracing a tragedy: How hundreds of migrants drowned on Greece’s watch,” The Washington Post
• “Missing Titanic Submersible ‘Catastrophic Implosion’ Likely Killed 5 Aboard Submersible,” The New York Times
• “Trump Defends Using ‘Chinese Virus’ Label, Ignoring Growing Criticism,” The New York Times, March 18, 2020
• “How violence against Asian Americans has grown and how to stop it, according to activists,” by Frances Kai-Hwa Wang, April 11, 2022, PBS NewsHour
• Asian American Month
• Miss Saigon by Claude-Michel Shöenberg and Alain Boublil
• The Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber
• Platoon, directed by Oliver Stone
• Full Metal Jacket, directed by Stanley Kubrick
• The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
• “America Ruined My Name For Me: So I Chose A New One” by Beth Nguyen, The New Yorker
• Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 2, Episode 7: Bich Minh Nguyen on the Refugee Experience of Holiday Narratives

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