Marble Mountain

by Wayne Karlin

Marble Mountain reads like a detective story as the protagonist, Kiet Hallam, an adopted daughter of African American and Vietnamese descent, searches for her true identity. Set in both America and Vietnam, and written from the perspective of both Americans and Vietnamese affected by the war, Marble Mountain explores the lasting damages of war to the soldiers who fought on both sides, to their families, and to the displaced and wounded children born during their parents’ conflict.
Kiet and her adoptive father, Alex Hallam—a Vietnam veteran working out his own tormented past through his passion for sculpting—travel to Vietnam. There, at Marble Mountain, a formation near Danang that is famous for its stone carvers and cave shrines, both will find the unresolved secrets of the past that connected them to each other even before Kiet was born.

270 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Wayne Karlin has published nine novels: The Genizah, A Wolf by the Ears, Marble Mountain, The Wished-For Country, Prisoners, Lost Armies, Us, The Extras, Crossover; a collection of short stories, Memorial Days, and three works of non-fiction: Rumors and Stones, War Movies, and Wandering Souls: Journeys with the Dead and the Living in Viet Nam, as well as poetry, stories and articles in literary journals and newspapers. He has received six State of Maryland Individual Artist Awards in Fiction, two Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts), the Paterson Prize in Fiction for 1999, the Vietnam Veterans of American Excellence in the Arts Award in 2005, and the 2019 Juniper Prize for Fiction for A Wolf by the Ears. Several of his books have been published in the U.K. and in translation in Vietnam, Italy, Denmark, Holland and Sweden.

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll start with my bias here; I took a creative writing course with Wayne Karlin and have heard him read many times at St Marys College, and think he's a wonderful writer and teacher. This book is a sequel to his novel Prisoners, and continues the story of the characters Alex, a Vietnam vet, and his adopted half-African American, half-Vietnamese daughter, Kiet, who he met when she was fifteen and in the foster home system. Kiet is now grown and returns to Vietnam, looking for her birth family. Alex follows her. But this makes the story sound American-centric, and it's not. It's as much the story of the Vietnamese characters Duong and Thuy and others, who Kiet and Alex meet in Vietnam, and their experiences during the war as well. A very wise book about war and the difficulties and necessity for reconciliation.