Love Letters to the Dirty South

**reviewed from uncorrected ARC received via LibraryThing ER**

nonfiction/memoir - follows Vietnamese-American immigrant through her childhood growing up around gang activity in her Houston neighborhood, working towards a PhD while recovering from a gunshot wound to the elbow (including some painful physical rehab) and focusing on the love shared between herself and her ex-boyfriend (in prison convicted of a crime he took the rap for to avoid having to rat out a friend). Their decades-long relationship is partly reconstructed from the many letters exchanged between them until he becomes too sick to write back.

A beautiful love story -- the author's background is so very different from the immigrant experiences that usually get published, show more but there is also a lot that is familiar--struggling through physical therapy, the heartbreak of many failed IVF treatments, not being able to visit someone in the hospital during COVID, and the indescribable feelings of grief and loss. I also appreciated the outsider's glimpse into the workings of the Texas prison system. Hà would also have made an awesome lawyer (she certainly has the passion for helping others and the tenacity for poring over boring legalese documents and laws), but readers are fortunate that her sociology prof steered her towards a doctorate instead so that she may tell and publish these stories. show less

Thank you to LibraryThing and University of New Mexico Press for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review!
Thao Ha didn't just break my heart; she massaged it, read poetry to it, took it on a tour of New England in autumn...and then violently ripped it out of my chest and cut it to pieces with a dull, rusty razor blade. She ruined a couple of my work days, because how am I supposed to do my job when I'm filled with not only pain, but the desire to return to the book and deepen that pain?
Love Letters to the Dirty South is an epic love story, one that hits close to home for a few different reasons, and one told so brilliantly, was so memorizing, that I don't think I'll ever be the same. Ha's journey from gang-adjacent show more daughter of super right wing immigrants to published author many times over/college professor was unique because even as she rose to intellectual heights, she kept it as real as possible. Then she reunited with the love of her life, after twenty years of being apart, and holy shit that's where it gets wild.
Hopefully this is changed before the book gets published, but the blurb on the back gives away probably the most intense part of the book, and while it didn't ruin it for me, the impact would have been much stronger had I not known what was about to happen. I had forgotten what the back said, but as I read I started to have a feeling of dread in my gut. One day, when I had the book in my hand, but not enough time to read, I re-read the back and it kind of fucked it up for me. Still, if the way the book is described by someone else is really the only fault I can find in the writing, that's saying something.
I wasn't impressed that this super smart, progressive person dated and married pretty much nothing but military veterans. It was confusing to see someone who could so clearly see the perils of prison, but loved people who were part of the biggest killing machine the world has ever seen.
Whatever though; I'm not here to make personal judgments. Ha can date whoever the hell she pleases, just as long as she keeps writing. I don't know how should could write something that compares to this; that's this personal, but if she tries I'll gladly be the test dummy. show less

I received this book as an Early Reviewer. This is an engaging biography of a Vietnamese refugee and her interactions with her family and her first love. Although the author becomes a sociology professor, her first boyfriend is sentenced to 60 years in prison for a shooting for which he took responsibility. The story is sad but beautiful and one that should be remembered.