When author Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai and actor Quyen Ngo reunite over a Zoom meeting, the love is palpable. As the call starts, they reach out toward their cameras, giving each other a virtual hug.
The author was so impressed with the job Ngo did that she didn’t consider another narrator for her new novel, “Dust Child,” which spans decades and deals with the lives of Vietnamese and American people whose lives are affected by the Vietnam War, including two Amerasians — those born in Asia to American fathers and Asian mothers.Quế Mai lives in Kyrgyzstan and Vietnam, and talked about her novel from New York, where she was doing an event for “Dust Child.
: When I listened to the audiobook, everything became real. I could hear my grandmothers’ voices. I wrote that novel to be able to have a grandmother, because both of my grandmas had died before I was born. And listening to Quyen’s narration, I could hear my grandmother’s voice in her performance. I stood in front of the family altar, and I cried, and I cried, and I cried. It was the first time that I felt like the whole book was so alive, that it was real, and everything was interconnected.