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* HalfBreedDiscrimination: The narrator is the illegitimate offspring of a French priest and a Vietnamese mother. As a consequence no one likes him or trusts him.
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* MixedAncestry: The narrator is the illegitimate offspring of a French priest and a Vietnamese mother. As a consequence no one likes him or trusts him.
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** It turns out he does survive, as 2021 sequel novel ''The Committed'' has him in Paris, engaging in drugs and crime.
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* HolidayInCambodia: In this case, Vietnam, at the tail-end of the war.
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mild, partial examples are not examples
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* NoPunctuationPeriod: A mild, partial example--there are no quotation marks in the book.
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* RoyalWe: A variant. After the year of ColdBloodedTorture leaves the narrator a broken man, he starts thinking of himself as "a man of two minds." Afterwards he refers to himself with the first person plural, as "we."
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* RoyalWe: A variant. After the year of ColdBloodedTorture leaves the narrator a broken man, he starts thinking of himself as "a man of two minds." Afterwards he refers to himself with the first person plural, as "we.""we".
* SleepDeprivationPunishment: [[spoiler:The protagonist]] is held in a torture chamber where one of the punishments is having incredibly bright lights shone on him at all times, alternated with random moments of absolute darkness. This disrupts his sleep and causes him to slowly lose his grip on sanity, all in an attempt to get him to confess.
* SleepDeprivationPunishment: [[spoiler:The protagonist]] is held in a torture chamber where one of the punishments is having incredibly bright lights shone on him at all times, alternated with random moments of absolute darkness. This disrupts his sleep and causes him to slowly lose his grip on sanity, all in an attempt to get him to confess.
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[[quoteright:314:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_0722_5.JPG]]
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[[quoteright:314:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_0722_5.JPG]]
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* MixedAncestry: The narrator is the illegitimate offspring of a French priest and a Vietnamese mother. As a consequence no one likes him or trusts him.
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* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The narrator meets a film director known only as "The Auteur" who is a very thinly veiled version of Creator/FrancisFordCoppola working on an unnamed project that is suspiciously like ''Film/ApocalypseNow''.
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* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The narrator meets a film director known only as "The Auteur" who is a very thinly veiled version of Creator/FrancisFordCoppola working on an unnamed project that is suspiciously like ''Film/ApocalypseNow''. (WordOfGod in the acknowledgments makes this explicit, mentioning several references regarding the production of ''Apocalypse Now''.)
* NoEnding: Ends pretty much in medias res, with the narrator and Bon getting ready to board a boat which will smuggle them out of Saigon and back to the West, with maybe a 50% chance of survival.
* NoEnding: Ends pretty much in medias res, with the narrator and Bon getting ready to board a boat which will smuggle them out of Saigon and back to the West, with maybe a 50% chance of survival.
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* RoyalWe: A variant. After the year of ColdBloodedTorture leaves the narrator a broken man, he starts thinking of himself as "a man of two minds." Afterwards he refers to himself with the first person plural, as "we."
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* FullCircleRevolution:
--> “....I understood, at last, how our revolution had gone from being the vanguard of political change to the rearguard hoarding power. In this transformation, we were not unusual. Hadn’t the French and the Americans done exactly the same? Once revolutionaries themselves, they had become imperialists, colonizing and occupying our defiant little land, taking away our freedom in the name of saving us. Our revolution took considerably longer than theirs, and was considerably bloodier, but we made up for lost time. When it came to learning the worst habits of our French masters and their American replacements, we quickly proved ourselves the best.”
--> “....I understood, at last, how our revolution had gone from being the vanguard of political change to the rearguard hoarding power. In this transformation, we were not unusual. Hadn’t the French and the Americans done exactly the same? Once revolutionaries themselves, they had become imperialists, colonizing and occupying our defiant little land, taking away our freedom in the name of saving us. Our revolution took considerably longer than theirs, and was considerably bloodier, but we made up for lost time. When it came to learning the worst habits of our French masters and their American replacements, we quickly proved ourselves the best.”
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* FramingDevice: The narrator in a prison cell, delivering his confession to a person he addresses as "Commandant".
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* FramingDevice: The Approximately 4/5 of the novel is the narrator in a prison cell, delivering his confession to a person he addresses as "Commandant"."Commandant". Chapter 19 finally catches the story up with the "present" and finds the narrator talking to the commandant, his confession being finished.
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* DramaticGunCock: "I heard the ''click-clack'' all around me of weapons being primed for firing, and I did the same."
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* TheAlcoholic: It becomes clear that the narrator is this when he is wracked with the [=DTs=] while his sad little group is sneaking through Laos.
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* TheRemnant: The General and all the other anti-Communist refugees who imagine that they'll organize a resistance to the Hanoi government.
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* TheRemnant: TheRemnant:
** The General and all the other anti-Communist refugees who imagine that they'll organize a resistance to the Hanoigovernment.government.
** The narrator eventually meets a more legitimate Remnant in the form of the admiral, who has been hiding out in the jungle since the fall of Saigon. He says that he sailed his ship to Thailand instead of following the Americans, and swore a vow to continue the struggle.
** The General and all the other anti-Communist refugees who imagine that they'll organize a resistance to the Hanoi
** The narrator eventually meets a more legitimate Remnant in the form of the admiral, who has been hiding out in the jungle since the fall of Saigon. He says that he sailed his ship to Thailand instead of following the Americans, and swore a vow to continue the struggle.
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* ADateWithRosiePalms: The narrator recounts his bizarre youthful habit of having sex with dead squid.
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* BuxomIsBetter: The narrator goes on at length about the general's buxom daughter Lana, describing her body shaped like a figure-8 and her deep cleavage.
* ADateWithRosiePalms: The narrator recounts an incident in hisbizarre youthful habit of having sex with youth in which he pleasures himself by violating a dead squid.squid. Which his mother then prepared and served for dinner.
* ADateWithRosiePalms: The narrator recounts an incident in his
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* NoPunctuationPeriod: A mild, partial example--there are no quotation marks in the book.
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Nvm guess this isn't even trivia anymore
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* HeyItsThatGuy: InUniverse with James Yoon, a Filipino actor who plays a Vietnamese character in the Auteur's movie.
--> “Yoon was the Asian Everyman, a television actor whose face most people would know but whose name they could not recall. They would say, Oh, that’s the Chinese guy on that cop show, or That’s the Japanese gardener in that comedy, or That’s the Oriental guy, what’s his name.”
--> “Yoon was the Asian Everyman, a television actor whose face most people would know but whose name they could not recall. They would say, Oh, that’s the Chinese guy on that cop show, or That’s the Japanese gardener in that comedy, or That’s the Oriental guy, what’s his name.”
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* HeyItsThatGuy: InUniverse with James Yoon, a Filipino actor who plays a Vietnamese character in the Auteur's movie.
--> “Yoon was the Asian Everyman, a television actor whose face most people would know but whose name they could not recall. They would say, Oh, that’s the Chinese guy on that cop show, or That’s the Japanese gardener in that comedy, or That’s the Oriental guy, what’s his name.”
--> “Yoon was the Asian Everyman, a television actor whose face most people would know but whose name they could not recall. They would say, Oh, that’s the Chinese guy on that cop show, or That’s the Japanese gardener in that comedy, or That’s the Oriental guy, what’s his name.”
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* NoNameGiven: Neither the narrator nor the General that he worked for in Saigon.
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* NoNameGiven: Neither the narrator nor the General that he worked for in Saigon. Also true of several other lesser characters in the story, including the "crapulent Major" that the narrator throws suspicion on, the General's wife, called only "Madame", the Commandant addressed in the framing device, the right-wing gung-ho Congressman that aligns himself with the South Vietnamese community, and the film director (see NoCelebritiesWereHarmed above).
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* TheRemnant: The General and all the other anti-Communist refugees who imagine that they'll organize a resistance to the Hanoi government.
* SpyFiction: Stale Beer indeed, with the narrator living the distinctly unglamorous life of a refugee while sending reports back to Hanoi.
* SpyFiction: Stale Beer indeed, with the narrator living the distinctly unglamorous life of a refugee while sending reports back to Hanoi.
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* ADateWithRosiePalms: The narrator recounts his bizarre youthful habit of having sex with dead squid.
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* MrsRobinson: Mrs. Mori, the 46-year-old Japanese-American woman who seduces the narrator not long after he comes to the USA.
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* {{Eagleland}}: Flavor 2, as while the narrator may have mixed feelings about his countrymen on either side of the war, he definitely hates the hell out of America, Americans, and white people.
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* ItTastesLikeFeet: The narrator complains that the cheap American beer he drinks both looks and tastes like baby's pee.
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* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: The narrator rejects this trope utterly.
--> "Let me assure you, if there is one part of a prostitute that is made of gold, it is not her heart. That some believe otherwise is a tribute to the conscientious performer."
--> "Let me assure you, if there is one part of a prostitute that is made of gold, it is not her heart. That some believe otherwise is a tribute to the conscientious performer."
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* NoNameGiven: Neither the narrator nor the General that he worked for in Saigon.
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* NoNameGiven: Neither the narrator nor the General that he worked for in Saigon.Saigon.
* VerbalIrony: The General scares the bejesus out of the narrator when raising the possibility of Communist "sleeper agents" left behind in the expat community.
* VerbalIrony: The General scares the bejesus out of the narrator when raising the possibility of Communist "sleeper agents" left behind in the expat community.
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* TheBookCipher: How the narrator communicates with Man after arriving in America, via messages written in invisible ink.
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* AddedAlliterativeAppeal: The narrator resorts to this when ruminating on his love/hate relationship with the United States.
--> "America, land of supermarkets and superhighways, of supersonic jets and Superman, of supercarriers and the Super Bowl!"
--> "America, land of supermarkets and superhighways, of supersonic jets and Superman, of supercarriers and the Super Bowl!"
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* BloodBrothers: Man, Bon, and the narrator were this since childhood, when they did the whole palm-slicing ritual.
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After a HowWeGotHere prologue, the story opens with the unnamed narrator, an aide-de-camp to a similarly unnamed General in the army of South UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}}. In 1975, as South Vietnam is collapsing, the narrator manages to get the General on a flight out of the country. Also getting out of the country is Bon, the narrator's best friend and an anti-communist zealot. The three of them eventually make it to America and attempt to start new lives in exile.
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* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The main character meets a film director known only as "The Auteur" who is a very thinly veiled version of Creator/FrancisFordCoppola working on an unnamed project that is suspiciously like ''Film/ApocalypseNow''.
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* BananaRepublic: The narrator, a Communist spy who thinks very little of the South Vietnamese government, refers to South Vietnam as a "jackfruit republic."
* FramingDevice: The narrator in a prison cell, delivering his confession to a person he addresses as "Commandant".
* TheMole: The narrator is an officer in South Vietnamese military intelligence, and a longtime spy for the North.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Themain character narrator meets a film director known only as "The Auteur" who is a very thinly veiled version of Creator/FrancisFordCoppola working on an unnamed project that is suspiciously like ''Film/ApocalypseNow''.''Film/ApocalypseNow''.
* NoNameGiven: Neither the narrator nor the General that he worked for in Saigon.
* FramingDevice: The narrator in a prison cell, delivering his confession to a person he addresses as "Commandant".
* TheMole: The narrator is an officer in South Vietnamese military intelligence, and a longtime spy for the North.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The
* NoNameGiven: Neither the narrator nor the General that he worked for in Saigon.
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''The Sympathizer'' is a 2015 novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen.
After a HowWeGotHere prologue, the story opens with the unnamed narrator, an aide-de-camp to a similarly unnamed General in the army of South UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}}. In 1975, as South Vietnam is collapsing, the narrator manages to get the General on a flight out of the country. Also getting out of the country is Bon, the narrator's best friend and an anti-communist zealot. The three of them eventually make it to America and attempt to start new lives in exile.
What neither Bon nor the General know is that the narrator is a deep-cover Communist spy for the North Vietnamese. His other best friend, his handler Man, prevails on him to continue his mission in the United States, spying on the South Vietnamese exile community on behalf of the government of now-united Vietnam. It turns out to be a wise precaution, as the General, unable to adjust to his diminished status in America--he owns a liquor store--elects to assemble an army of volunteers and invade Vietnam.
----
!!Tropes:
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The main character meets a film director known only as "The Auteur" who is a very thinly veiled version of Creator/FrancisFordCoppola working on an unnamed project that is suspiciously like ''Film/ApocalypseNow''.
After a HowWeGotHere prologue, the story opens with the unnamed narrator, an aide-de-camp to a similarly unnamed General in the army of South UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}}. In 1975, as South Vietnam is collapsing, the narrator manages to get the General on a flight out of the country. Also getting out of the country is Bon, the narrator's best friend and an anti-communist zealot. The three of them eventually make it to America and attempt to start new lives in exile.
What neither Bon nor the General know is that the narrator is a deep-cover Communist spy for the North Vietnamese. His other best friend, his handler Man, prevails on him to continue his mission in the United States, spying on the South Vietnamese exile community on behalf of the government of now-united Vietnam. It turns out to be a wise precaution, as the General, unable to adjust to his diminished status in America--he owns a liquor store--elects to assemble an army of volunteers and invade Vietnam.
----
!!Tropes:
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The main character meets a film director known only as "The Auteur" who is a very thinly veiled version of Creator/FrancisFordCoppola working on an unnamed project that is suspiciously like ''Film/ApocalypseNow''.
