Haing Ngor (Magill Book Reviews)

Haing Ngor had a rebellious childhood. His father, who operated a profitable oil-trucking business and later a lumber mill, came from a Chinese background. His mother had the darker skin of the Khmer race, native Cambodians. France ruled the racially stressed, impoverished country, while guerrillas sought to overthrow its puppet monarchy. Businessmen such as Haing Ngor’s father were often caught between the two sides, periodically being kidnapped by the guerrillas for ransom while also paying bribes to government soldiers in order to navigate the roads.

Unlike his brothers, Haing Ngor rejects a place in the family business. After early academic failure and even a short period as a Buddhist monk, he went to medical school and became a doctor, majoring in obstetrics and gynecology. While Haing Ngor was leading a comfortable professional life, a reactionary government ruled his country, fighting to suppress the indigenous Khmer Rouge. Across the border in Vietnam, Chinese-dominated Northern forces battled the American controlled South, encroaching upon Cambodian territory on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

As conditions worsened, Haing Ngor made a shortsighted decision to remain in Cambodia, presuming that any government would support medical practice. Instead, the triumphant Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot herded city populations into regional work camps as forced labor to grow rice and to work on machineless construction projects.

In the ensuing four years, Haing Ngor led an existence of deceit, theft, and misery. He was subjected to torture, and he witnessed or discovered the deaths of parents, siblings, and friends. Malnourished and lacking medicine, his wife Huoy suffered through a premature childbirth and died in his arms. With the collapse of the Khmer Rouge, Haing Ngor escaped to Thailand and eventually to the United States.

The story is distinguished by a sharp eye for poignant detail and by extraordinary candor. Almost in expiation, Haing Ngor dwells on personal failings and misdeeds. He finds in the Cambodian character a dark side that nurtures resentment and explosive rages. He attributes his skill at acting to his years of subterfuge and false posturing--he masqueraded as a taxi driver in order to escape certain execution should his true profession be discovered. This disguise survived water torture, the amputation of part of a finger, and the hacking away at an ankle bone with an axe. Wrenching personal details such as these are interspersed with thoughtful, objective passages describing the political and military events that devastated Cambodia.

Sources for Further Study

Chicago Tribune. January 17, 1988, XIV, p. 1.

The Christian Science Monitor. March 31, 1988, p. 1.

Library Journal. CXIII, February 1, 1988, p. 63.

Los Angeles Times Book Review. January 31, 1988, p. 3.

The New York Times Book Review. XCIII, February 21, 1988, p. 30.

Publishers Weekly. CCXXXII, December 18, 1987, p. 49.

The Washington Post Book World. XVIII, January 31, 1988, p. 6.