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A Blessing over Ashes: The Remarkable Odyssey of My Unlikely Brother
From a writer of insight, wit, and compassion comes the remarkable story of a boy from the killing fields of Cambodia who irrevocably changed the life of an American family.
In clear, vivid prose, Adam Fifield recaptures the snowy night when he, at the age of eleven, along with his mother, father, and younger brother, waited to welcome fifteen-year-old Soeuth into the family. The boy shuffled in, short and scrawny, a baseball cap shading his downcast eyes. He spoke not a word, yet a silent terror hovered around him.
The author describes the events of the months that followed: Soeuth's wariness and detachment; his fear of being seized in the night by his parents' ghosts; Adam's discovery of his new brother's amazing physical skills, like catching fish with his bare hands; and Soeuth's eventual and painful emergence from years of darkness. As Soeuth gradually adjusts to rural middle-class America, a world fantastically foreign from the horrors of his homeland, a bond is formed with his new brothers that would permanently affect them all.
In his senior year of high school, Soeuth leaves home, lured by an anesthetic world of drugs and alcohol. Over the next few years, the brothers drift apart, distracted by college, jobs, girlfriends. Then Soeuth finds out that the members of his Cambodian family -- whom, for fourteen years, he has presumed to be dead-are alive. The discovery is the beginning of a new journey -- one that reunites Soeuth with his long-lost brothers, sisters, and parents...and with his American brother Adam.
In clear, vivid prose, Adam Fifield recaptures the snowy night when he, at the age of eleven, along with his mother, father, and younger brother, waited to welcome fifteen-year-old Soeuth into the family. The boy shuffled in, short and scrawny, a baseball cap shading his downcast eyes. He spoke not a word, yet a silent terror hovered around him.
The author describes the events of the months that followed: Soeuth's wariness and detachment; his fear of being seized in the night by his parents' ghosts; Adam's discovery of his new brother's amazing physical skills, like catching fish with his bare hands; and Soeuth's eventual and painful emergence from years of darkness. As Soeuth gradually adjusts to rural middle-class America, a world fantastically foreign from the horrors of his homeland, a bond is formed with his new brothers that would permanently affect them all.
In his senior year of high school, Soeuth leaves home, lured by an anesthetic world of drugs and alcohol. Over the next few years, the brothers drift apart, distracted by college, jobs, girlfriends. Then Soeuth finds out that the members of his Cambodian family -- whom, for fourteen years, he has presumed to be dead-are alive. The discovery is the beginning of a new journey -- one that reunites Soeuth with his long-lost brothers, sisters, and parents...and with his American brother Adam.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
July 18, 2015
Fifield was a preteen when his parents decided to adopt a teenager from Cambodia. Soeuth had been forced into labour camps, separated from his family, lost. When he came to the United States, he was effectively still lost.
There's a strong sense of distance here. Fifield was young enough to not really be able to understand what Soeuth had been through, but they were all—Fifield, his brother Adam, especially Soeuth—old enough to make it hard to gel casually into 'family'. Don't get me wrong—it's clear that Fifield regards Soeuth as his brother. But it's also clear that it took a long time for them to get to a point where they understood each other.
I realized that I knew very little about Soeuth's life in Cambodia. It seemed strange that I'd never really considered this before. When we were older, I never asked him about it, because I figured he wanted to forget it. The stories that I heard when I was eleven, twelve, thirteen years old were now mostly grainy and unreliable, like old, moiré film clips. (166)
They grow closer, then grow apart. There's a point to which Soeuth can fit in in the United States, and there's a point to which he just has so much history—unresolved history—elsewhere that he...can't.
I looked at my brother and he did not look at me and I wondered how he could take it, being cut adrift of all moorings, living in two worlds but belonging in neither... (229)
As Soeuth spoke English with us and Khmer with this Cambodian family, he seemed like a distant friend, the kind who stops by every couple of years unannounced, with a car full of kids and a cooler, headed to Montreal or Quebec. In his translations or asides to the Cambodian man and his wife, there were inflections and little chuckles and smirks that we were not meant to understand. (216)
I liked the book, and I didn't. I lost respect for the author when he wrote about his rape-saviour fantasy (279); at the same time, I thought he did a good job of showing the reader the ups and downs of Soeuth's integration in the US and his later reconnection with his Cambodian family.
"Well, I can't live here." His eyes consulted something on a distant rooftop. "It's not just fighting. A lot of Cambodians hate Vietnamese. My wife is Vietnamese. Maybe we could live in Vietnam."
"Some Vietnamese aren't too fond of Cambodians either, old man."
"Yeah," he said. "Vermont probably the best place to live, when we have money for the house."
It struck me then, more than ever before, that his identity had been whittled to the one choice, which wasn't really a choice: he was an American. (271)
The book description isn't entirely accurate, I think, or at least not as Fifield tells the story. Soeuth's later distance from his American family isn't about drugs and alcohol; it's about identity and being adrift. Finding his Cambodian family is a success, but it's not a clear-cut one. It complicates things. Family is complicated—biological or not. It makes for quite a story.
There's a strong sense of distance here. Fifield was young enough to not really be able to understand what Soeuth had been through, but they were all—Fifield, his brother Adam, especially Soeuth—old enough to make it hard to gel casually into 'family'. Don't get me wrong—it's clear that Fifield regards Soeuth as his brother. But it's also clear that it took a long time for them to get to a point where they understood each other.
I realized that I knew very little about Soeuth's life in Cambodia. It seemed strange that I'd never really considered this before. When we were older, I never asked him about it, because I figured he wanted to forget it. The stories that I heard when I was eleven, twelve, thirteen years old were now mostly grainy and unreliable, like old, moiré film clips. (166)
They grow closer, then grow apart. There's a point to which Soeuth can fit in in the United States, and there's a point to which he just has so much history—unresolved history—elsewhere that he...can't.
I looked at my brother and he did not look at me and I wondered how he could take it, being cut adrift of all moorings, living in two worlds but belonging in neither... (229)
As Soeuth spoke English with us and Khmer with this Cambodian family, he seemed like a distant friend, the kind who stops by every couple of years unannounced, with a car full of kids and a cooler, headed to Montreal or Quebec. In his translations or asides to the Cambodian man and his wife, there were inflections and little chuckles and smirks that we were not meant to understand. (216)
I liked the book, and I didn't. I lost respect for the author when he wrote about his rape-saviour fantasy (279); at the same time, I thought he did a good job of showing the reader the ups and downs of Soeuth's integration in the US and his later reconnection with his Cambodian family.
"Well, I can't live here." His eyes consulted something on a distant rooftop. "It's not just fighting. A lot of Cambodians hate Vietnamese. My wife is Vietnamese. Maybe we could live in Vietnam."
"Some Vietnamese aren't too fond of Cambodians either, old man."
"Yeah," he said. "Vermont probably the best place to live, when we have money for the house."
It struck me then, more than ever before, that his identity had been whittled to the one choice, which wasn't really a choice: he was an American. (271)
The book description isn't entirely accurate, I think, or at least not as Fifield tells the story. Soeuth's later distance from his American family isn't about drugs and alcohol; it's about identity and being adrift. Finding his Cambodian family is a success, but it's not a clear-cut one. It complicates things. Family is complicated—biological or not. It makes for quite a story.
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May 22, 2022"I couldn't see my brother's face; but I knew somehow that he was smiling, knew that, as of this moment, his search was over. He had reached his good soil, that place apart from most of the rest of us, where ghosts return into the earth, where new life grows from the old, and where you know unequivocally, for once, that you are complete."
Soeuth was a child who was uprooted from his rural Cambodian family, separated from his family by the Khmer Rouge, surviving by attaching to whomever he could among refugees, and eventually landing as a foster brother/son in the Fifield family home in Vermont . . . a boy becoming a man, searching for his place in the world. It is also Adam's story, the foster brother who struggles to hold on to his place in Soeuth's heart.
Soeuth was a child who was uprooted from his rural Cambodian family, separated from his family by the Khmer Rouge, surviving by attaching to whomever he could among refugees, and eventually landing as a foster brother/son in the Fifield family home in Vermont . . . a boy becoming a man, searching for his place in the world. It is also Adam's story, the foster brother who struggles to hold on to his place in Soeuth's heart.
June 14, 2023
Mr. Fifield alternates the events of Soueth, a teen-aged Cambodian refugee, becoming a part of his family and community with South's memories of child slavery, starvation, and other hardships as a young boy in his homeland during the Khmer Rouge regime. Soueth matures into a man and attempts to navigate in his adopted world, feeling neither fully belonging to the United States, nor his homeland of Cambodia which he later visits. It is a heartfelt close look at the struggles and triumphs of having a foot in two cultures and forging a path forward to become complete.
January 18, 2018
A lovely book, flows beautifully.
Amazing how something we can originally think is so unlucky can become the best thing that could have happened to us, even though it can also produce profound sadness.
At times very difficult to read, but also such a life affirming story.
Amazing how something we can originally think is so unlucky can become the best thing that could have happened to us, even though it can also produce profound sadness.
At times very difficult to read, but also such a life affirming story.
March 26, 2022
The stories were interesting and he definitely lived a very interesting life but the presentation of it all was only decent.
October 20, 2014
Very powerful. I read this book during a recent trip to Cambodia with a Cambodian friend. That fact certainly magnified my reaction, but I would have found this book powerful under any circumstances.
Something that other reviewers have not empahsized is that the Cambodian brother in the story, Soeuth, was just a young child of 7 and is alone during his years in the slave camps. Even if you are familiar with the Pol Pot period you will be deeply moved by the details of day to day life of someone of that age in the camps. The chapters of that period alternate with chapters of the American-born brother at the same age. At first these chapters struck me as mundane - as a bit of a gimmick. They were not. The context proves important because the American-born brother tells the story in a way that Soeuth could not.
In the second half of the book, the two stories converge in America, and after the intense emotion of the killing fields, this too appears mundane - at first. Out of stories of fishing, shop class, and keg parties comes one of the themes of the book; his American years prove as influential on Soeuth, the adult, as his childhood. Not surprisingly, the author is not left unaffected either. The trip to Cambodia made by both brothers bears this out.
Something that other reviewers have not empahsized is that the Cambodian brother in the story, Soeuth, was just a young child of 7 and is alone during his years in the slave camps. Even if you are familiar with the Pol Pot period you will be deeply moved by the details of day to day life of someone of that age in the camps. The chapters of that period alternate with chapters of the American-born brother at the same age. At first these chapters struck me as mundane - as a bit of a gimmick. They were not. The context proves important because the American-born brother tells the story in a way that Soeuth could not.
In the second half of the book, the two stories converge in America, and after the intense emotion of the killing fields, this too appears mundane - at first. Out of stories of fishing, shop class, and keg parties comes one of the themes of the book; his American years prove as influential on Soeuth, the adult, as his childhood. Not surprisingly, the author is not left unaffected either. The trip to Cambodia made by both brothers bears this out.
October 19, 2007
After reading this book, I could see a lot of my parents in it. The way they unyieldingly through the years sent money back to their families, hoping that their success could transfer somehow to the rural lives of the individuals they'd left behind. I could see also my older brother in here--how he'd have a lifetime's worth of trauma and suffereing to make up for. And i realize that happiness is something one settles upon early in life. and I regeret sometimes that Me and my little borther had easy access to that, whereas my older brother had to live with those memories of soldiers guarding every road in and out of the villages.
It has always been hard for our family to talk about this part of our lives. but I read this while working at the bookstore. And I passed the book on to my little brother after finishing it,saying that I thought he might learn something from this. Of course, we haven't talked about it whatsoever. But I am grateful for SOMEONE's careful insistence on recording the story. If not for Adam Fifield, his brother's story (and many of ours) would have gone unrecorded. How sad.
It has always been hard for our family to talk about this part of our lives. but I read this while working at the bookstore. And I passed the book on to my little brother after finishing it,saying that I thought he might learn something from this. Of course, we haven't talked about it whatsoever. But I am grateful for SOMEONE's careful insistence on recording the story. If not for Adam Fifield, his brother's story (and many of ours) would have gone unrecorded. How sad.
March 25, 2008
I loved this book. I bought it at the airport in Siem Reap, Cambodia as we were leaving. I believe that having just been in Cambodia when I started reading the book made it even more poignant. It is the heart wrenching story of a 14 year old Cambodian boy named Soeuth, who has survived the killing fields of Cambodia and is adopted by an American family. The book comes across as being very truthful, looking at flaws and strengths of both the cultures that Soeuth is grappling with. The part that I loved most about the book was the theme of Soeuth trying to reach what he calls his "good soil"--a place where he is at peace and himself--and what it takes for him to get there.
July 3, 2015
This was a good book. Adam Fifield was a teenager from Vermont when his family adopted a teenaged boy from Cambodia. The Fifields were his second adoption after he didn't adjust well to his first adoptive family. Adam tells the story of how his brother adjusted to the ways of his family at the same time they adjusted to his own quirks and beliefs. When they were older, Adam accompanied Soeuth back to Cambodia to meet the rest of his family, and supports but does not enable him in his journey to adulthood.
January 22, 2017
This book provides an incomplete firsthand account of what it's like to be the sibling of an adopted refugee, recounts events as experienced by someone else in a dry and obviously detached manner, then ultimately settles into detailing joint experiences with quite a bit of distance. Personally, I found it didn't deliver on any of the areas it aimed for. A story that could have read in a much more powerful manner (had it been told by the person who actually lived the atrocities described) was severely deluded by the secondhand retelling.
September 18, 2013
This is a memoir of not only the human spirit willingness to survive but to live. The descriptions are so vivid that you are pulled into the pages reliving the horrors of war and the joys of love. A memoir that tugs at your heart and gives you hope. After reading this book I felt fortunate to have lived the good life. I recommend this book to all but especially to those that are feeling down on their luck. Filomena Abys-Smith Author of A Bit of Myself
August 7, 2012
Wow. From the first page, this book PULLED ME IN. I could not stop reading all day and it took me less than 24 hours to finish this memoir. I just finished it and wow, words can't describe how much I enjoyed the book. The only thing was that I wish Adam put pictures of his family and a map of Cambodia would be nice. But other than that, I have no complaints. Simply heartwrenching.
July 30, 2008
Memoir by brother of Cambodian named Soethe who came to live with a Vermont family. Touching and well written but in some parts I wished it had a bit more insight and depth. Overall still a really good read.
August 9, 2016
Beautifully understated account of two young men's very different lives and their efforts to keep them cohesive. Fifield is spare on the emotion, laying deeply profound concepts just under the surface of a straightforward narrative - the book is a taut minefield of introspection.
June 3, 2008
This book was fascinating reading, you are compelled to be grateful for the life you live after realizing the struggles across the world. Would recommend this book.
February 8, 2011
Interesting enough, for what it is. Not poorly written, not fascinating. Decent fill-the-time reading, but I won't remember the title two months from now.
October 29, 2011
Good book, tough life. Disappointed that the memoir did not go further past the brothers trip together.
November 18, 2014
Fantastic read, giving an insight into how much we in the Western world do not appreciate how lucky we have been in our circumstances. Read it in 4 hours. Couldn't put it down.
April 1, 2013
Amazing true story. Makes you appreciate living in the USA.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews