Short Summary - Black-Eyed Women

   Black-Eyed Women - Viet Thanh Nguyen

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Introduction:

      "The Black Eyed Women" is a short story by Viet Thanh Nguyen, included in his collection "The Refugees," which was published in 2017. The story follows a Vietnamese refugee living in California who works as a ghostwriter for a ghostwriting service. 

     The protagonist, haunted by memories of her brother's death during their escape from Vietnam, encounters a ghostly illusion that forces her to confront her past and the secrets she has kept buried. The story explores themes of loss, trauma, identity, and the lingering effects of war and displacement. It's a poignant and thought-provoking story that captures the complexity of the refugee experience.

The Ghost writers : 

    At the outset of the story, the ghostwriter explains how her customers come to her . Usually, people who've been kidnapped or put in jail for years, or  involved in a sex scandal, or survived something that would normally kill them, would come to her. They became famous all of a sudden and needed someone to help them write their autobiographies. 

    The mother of the ghostwriter tells her that she should be glad that her name is not on the work. She tells her daughter a story that there was a reporter in Vietnam who wrote about the harsh treatments that are given to the prisoners in Vietnam. The government found the reporter and beats him up, and no one saw him again. The mother advised her daughter "Writers who put their names on things get that,"

Vic Devoto, survivor : 

    Vic Devoto is the new client for the ghostwriter. Seventy-three people, including his wife and children died in an airplane crash. Vic Devoto is the only one who lived. Devoto appears on talk shows and in interviews.

Arrival of Ghost brother : 

    The ghostwriter's own story haunts her as she works on Victor's. One early morning, her mother wakes her up and tells her that her dead brother has come to see them. The ghostwriter's mom takes her down to the hall to show her. The carpet is wet, but no one is there. She tells her mother that she is probably not seeing things because she thinks her mother opened the door and got wet in the rain before going back inside. Her mom says her brother really did want to see her.

    Few days later, the ghostwriter herself met his brother. He is fifteen years old, pale, and wearing wet black shorts and a grey T-shirt. His arms and legs are boney, and his voice is hoarse and scratchy. The ghostwriter brings him tidy clothes and a warm towel to make him feel comfort, welcome. Instead of asking why he is there, she asks why it took him. She is not sure if he knows this, but she feels like being a mother would be too close for her. 

    The ghostwriter hears her mother's coming back, so she tells her brother to wait there so that her mother can see him too. They only find the clothes and the towel when they get back. She should never turn her back on a ghost, her mother tells her. The ghostwriter reluctantly tells her mother that she does believe in ghosts now. 

Memories haunt : 

    At the verge of completing Victor's memoir, she goes down stairs, to write. The ghostwriter's mother's words make her feel bad, and she starts to question, why she lived and her brother died. She hears a knock as she starts to remember the day he died. 

    She let her brother in because it is also his house. He tells her that he has not left this world yet, when she asks him why he is here?. She knows why—the day he died, still fresh in her mind, even though she has tried to forget it.

The incident : 

    Along with a hundred other people, the author and his brother were on a boat taking refugees. He was fifteen years old and she was thirteen. Her brother cut off her long hair, tied her breasts together, gave her his shirt, and put oil on her face before taking her into the engine room.

    Following this, the ghostwriter and her brother hid in the dark until the pirates showed up. After taking their loot, they grabbed the teen girls and young women and shot any men on their way. The girls were thrown on board to the pirates' ship.The last pirate to leave took a quick look at the ghostwriter and said, "She is a handsome boy." 

    The pirate then pulled out his machine gun and hit her brother in the head with it. The ghostwriter's brother had just stabbed the pirate. He hit the deck hard, and there was a crack. He was dead, and blood was coming out of his head.

    Vic had been asked by the author if he is scared of ghosts. "You are not afraid of the things you believe in," he tells her. She did not get the comment at the time, but she does now. She cries with her brother because they did not get to spend enough time together, because her father and mother did not say enough nice things to each other, and because everyone who went missing that day, including herself, never came back.

Viktor's memoir : 

    A few months later, Victor's memoir is published. The ghostwriter's name is not on it, but she is becoming better known in the business world behind the scenes. When her agent calls to offer her another biography, she tells him that she is already working on her own book of ghost stories.

Renew the past :

      The author decides to forget her past unaddressed. At that night, they tell stories to each other, and the ghost writer writes down all of them. She writes that this is how some of her stories come to her, She tells them that stories are just made up by people.

 "They are lost in a world other than our own," she writes. "We look for them there and then leave them here to be found, like ghosts' clothes."

Conclusion : 

    The story revolves around the protagonist, who is very interested in writing ghost stories and is having a hard time with memories of her past, from Vietnam. The Vietnam War changed their lives by causing them to become refugees and by changing the way they saw the world.

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