OSG Book Club

We’re reading The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen. Join our book club to listen to our volunteer Finn Jensen read to the group.

The OSG Book Club meets every Tuesday at 7 PM. All are welcome, but please RSVP to receive the Zoom link*.  Note: it’s not mandatory to purchase the book since it will be read out loud in the group.

*Once you’ve signed up once, no need to sign up every week. We’ll automatically send you the zoom link weekly with a reminder.

About the book:

A profound, startling, and beautifully crafted debut novel, The Sympathizer is the story of a man of two minds, someone whose political beliefs clash with his individual loyalties.

It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be given passage aboard the last flights out of the country. The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles, unaware that one among their number, the captain, is secretly observing and reporting on the group to a higher-up in the Viet Cong.

The Sympathizer is the story of this captain: a man brought up by an absent French father and a poor Vietnamese mother, a man who went to university in America, but returned to Vietnam to fight for the Communist cause. A gripping spy novel, an astute exploration of extreme politics, and a moving love story, The Sympathizer explores a life between two worlds and examines the legacy of the Vietnam War in literature, film, and the wars we fight today.