Nothing Follows
draws from the genres of memoir and poetry. Written from a young girl's
perspective, the center of this world is a military father, an absent mother,
sisters who come and go, broken brothers, and friends she meets in San José.
With each place the book travels through--from Butler,
Pennsylvania, to San José, California--we see that racism, objectification, and
sexual violence permeate the realities of the narrator and those close to her.
In marking the journey, Lan Duong recreates the portraits of the girl's friends
and family and maps out refugee girlhoods.
Spiked with violence, pleasure, and longing,
these refuges are questionable sanctuaries for those refugee girls who have
grown up during the 1980s in the aftermath of war.