The Sympathizer is a burning brand of a debut, a truly brilliant novel that delves deeply into issues of identity, memory, and myth. I can picture Nguyen, trembling with victor's exhaustion as the awards and accolades roll in, lifting up a thick contract from the publisher and crying out "They want a sequel!"

And so a finely complete story is pried back open. Our anonymous narrator escapes from the reeducation camp with his bloodbrother Bon, and having committed several murders in America, set out for Paris and the other major Vietnamese diaspora. There, our narrator deals with French racism, his deteriorating mental state, and the consequences of crime and drug addiction while dealing with some unfinished business from the first book: his love of the star of Vietnamese exile variety show Lana, and his friend's Bon plan to murder the faceless Commissar, who Bon does not know is their third blood brother Man.

The Committed has good parts, but suffers from a bad case of flab. The book dances around what literature professors think is interesting: unreliable narrators, French theory, fathers, cocaine and orgies. The satire of The Sympathizer was bitingly accurate. That of The Committed is diffuse, anti-Parisian stereotypes rather than acid caricatures.

The Sympathizer is a hard act to follow, and this sequel is simply okay.