The Manicurist's Daughter: A Memoir

"In juxtaposing her Vietnamese American family’s refugee trajectory with her mother’s 1996 death at the hands of an uninsured plastic surgeon, Susan Lieu eloquently expresses how this loss has been both an irreparable internal rupture and an ongoing process toward public reckoning. Lieu’s initial zeal to avenge her mother’s death by publicly shaming the unscrupulous doctor (he died of Parkinson’s disease before she had the chance) becomes, over time, a way to redefine her mother’s legacy within the evolving lives of surviving family members who still struggle with the social stigma from the young matriarch’s death. By exploring public and private ways to honor her mother’s memory, Lieu’s memoir encompasses both social and familial dimensions."