Ma and Me: A Memoir

About this book

Winner of the 2023 Pacific Northwest Book Award. Finalist for the 2023 Lesbian Memoir/Biography Lambda Literary Award "A nuanced mediation on love identity and belonging. This story of survival radiates with resilience and hope." Publishers Weekly (starred review) "This openhearted memoir . . . opens the door to include queer descendants of war survivors into the growing American library of love. Sarah Schulman author of Let the Record Show When Putsata Reang was eleven months old her family fled war-torn Cambodia spending twenty-three days on an overcrowded navy vessel before finding sanctuary at an American naval base in the Philippines. Holding what appeared to be a lifeless baby in her arms Ma resisted the captains orders to throw her bundle overboard. Instead on landing Ma rushed her baby into the arms of American military nurses and doctors who saved the childs life. I had hope just a little you were still alive Ma would tell Put in an oft-repeated story that became family legend. Over the years Put lived to please Ma and make her proud hustling to repay her life debt by becoming the consummate good Cambodian daughter working steadfastly by Mas side in the berry fields each summer and eventually building a successful career as an award-winning journalist. But Puts adoration and efforts are no match for Mas expectations. When she comes out to Ma in her twenties its just a phase. When she fails to bring home a Khmer boyfriend its because shes not trying hard enough. When at the age of forty Put tells Ma she is finally getting marriedto a womanit breaks their bond in two. In her startling memoir Reang explores the long legacy of inherited trauma and the crushing weight of cultural and filial duty. With rare clarity and lyric wisdom Ma and Me is a stunning deeply moving memoir about love debt and duty.