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IF I HAD TWO LIVES

Abbigail Rosewood

This luminous debut novel follows a young woman from her childhood in Vietnam to her life as an immigrant in the United States – and her necessary return to her homeland.

As a child, isolated from the world in a secretive military encampment with her distant mother, she turns for affection to a sympathetic soldier and to the only other girl in the camp, forming two friendships that will shape the rest of her life.

As a young adult in New York, cut off from her native country and haunted by the scars of her youth, she is still in search of a home. She falls in love with a married woman who is the image of her childhood friend, and follows strangers because they remind her of her soldier. When tragedy arises, she must return to Vietnam to confront the memories of her youth – and recover her identity.

An inspiring meditation on love, loss, and the presence of a past that never dies, the novel explores the ancient question: do we value the people in our lives because of who they are, or because of what we need them to be?

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Book Published 2019-04-01 by Europa

Comments

“If I Had Two Lives is the perfect novel of dislocation; a piercing and almost hallucinatory portrait of what occurs when one abandons one life, by choice, by force, or by circumstance, and is thrust into an unknown landscape. I was especially struck by Rosewood’s insights into the Vietnamese/American splits in our North American psyche, and the way her story so movingly dramatizes these splits, and in the end welds them back together, is absolutely brilliant. With this extraordinary, artfully constructed and beautifully written debut, Abbigail N. Rosewood takes her place among the very best of the new wave of Asian-American authors.” –James Cañón, author of Tales from the Town of Widows

“I can’t overstate what a pleasure this was to read...a stunning, totally original tale told by a masterful storyteller. Abbigail Rosewood captures so much nuance and tackles the heaviest topics with a light, magical touch. There is great talent on display here.” –Yelena Akhtiorskaya, author of Panic in a Suitcase

“A highly evolved, engrossing, and moving novel. Abbigail Rosewood has expanded my worldview through vividly depicted characters that I will long remember. This is a remarkable achievement.”
–Alan Ziegler, author of Short and The Swan Song of Vaudeville

“A harrowing, wondrously constructed story of childhood and a brilliant meditation on how life is lived today.” –Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story and Little Failure

“In this wise and lyrical debut, Abbigail Rosewood maps journeys through countries and journeys through the psyche in powerful, sensual detail. Every sentence is transporting, in all senses of the word. A gorgeous and resonant novel.”
–Stacey D’Erasmo, literary critic and author of A Seahorse Year and The Sky Below

“To come to America is to come of age: this is what Abbigail Rosewood reminds us, in prose of an almost ruthless
compassion.” - Joshua Cohen, author of Witz and The Book of Numbers