My Documents

A Novel

De: Kevin Nguyen

Narrado por: Kelly Marie Tran

The paths of four family members diverge drastically when the U.S. government begins detaining Vietnamese Americans, in this “rich, gripping novel that lands squarely as a mirror of our contemporary moral squalor” (Los Angeles Times).

“Comically macabre . . . Nguyen [is] a stellar satirist who takes bold imaginative risks.”—The New York Times (Editors’ Choice)

Ursula, Alvin, Jen, and Duncan grew up as cousins in the sprawling Nguyen family. As young adults, they’re on the precipice of new ventures: Ursula as a budding journalist in Manhattan, Alvin as an engineering intern for Google, Jen as a naïve freshman at NYU, and Duncan as a promising newcomer on his high school football team. Their lives are upended when a series of violent, senseless attacks across America creates a national panic, prompting a government policy that pushes Vietnamese Americans into internment camps. Jen and Duncan are sent with their mother to Camp Tacoma while Ursula and Alvin receive exemptions.

Cut off entirely from the outside world, forced to work jobs they hate, Jen and Duncan try to withstand long, dusty days in camp and acclimate to life without the internet. That is, until Jen discovers a way to get messages to the outside. Her first instinct is to reach out to Ursula, who sees this connection as a chance to tell the world about the horrors of camp—and as an opportunity to bolster her own reporting career in the process.

Informed by real-life events, from Japanese incarceration to the Vietnam War and modern-day immigrant detention, Kevin Nguyen’s novel gives us a version of reality only a few degrees away from our own. Moving and finely attuned to both the brutalities and mundanities of racism, Mỹ Documents is a strangely funny and touching portrait of American ambition, fear, and family. The story of the Nguyens is one of resilience and how we return to one another, and to ourselves, after tragedy.

©2025 Kevin Nguyen (P)2025 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Nguyen’s barbed social commentary convincingly depicts a dystopian America that’s both distinct from and similar to the country we know today . . . Mỹ Documents is a timely and intermittently chilling reimagining of history.”—The Washington Post

“The land of the free is also the land of the incarcerated, the detained, the interned. In that sense, Kevin Nguyen has written a very American novel indeed.”—The New York Times

“In My Documents (One World), Kevin Nguyen invents a dystopian alternative future that hews increasingly close to the actual present. . . . Family, loyalty, and survival are in play here, as is the terrifying fragility of our modern lives.”—The Boston Globe

Captivating story

Feels a bit too real for our current time. Read (listened to)
it in one sitting.

Unique story and characters

Beautifully written book. Exploring themes so relevant to today’s political climate in a sensitive and personal way. Highly recommend <3

A concept of a plan for a novel

Interesting premise, but very little development of a story, Characters are predictable stereotypes of young people.