Ghostwritten - “Black-Eyed women”
Nguyen writes, “By the time victor David chose me, I had resigned myself to being one of those writers whose names did not appear on book covers. His agent had given him a book that I had ghost written, its ostensible author the father of a boy who had shot and killed several people at his school.” In the context of writing, the figurative ‘ghostwritten’ relates to a work whose author’s individuality is obscured. Such author’s distinctiveness is analogous to a ghost since it is mysterious.
“Like Cancer” - “Black-Eyed women”
Nguyen explains, “Perhaps this apparition was the first consequence of what my mother considered my unnatural nature, childless and single. Perhaps he was not a figment of my imagination but a symptom of something wrong, like the cancer that killed my father.” Nguyen endeavors to decipher the implication of his brother’s adamant ghost. He contemplates that his brother’s ghost could be an indicator of his weirdness (which is epitomized by the allegorical cancer) which he ought to resolve.
“The rotation of the earth” - “War Years”
Nguyen recounts, “Before Mrs. Hoa broke into our lives in the summer of 1983, nothing my mother did surprised me. Her routine was as predictable as the rotation of the earth, beginning with how she rapped on my door every morning, at six, six fifteen, and six thirty, until at last I was awake.” The allegorical rotation accentuates Nguyen’s mother’s predictability. Her actions are constant and foreseeable.
