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The Flower Show and the Toth FamilyThe Flower Show and The Toth Family, two novellas in one volume by Istv n rk ny (1912 79), introduce to an English speaking audience a Hungarian writer with a keen sense of the absurdities of modern life. In the '60s and '70s, rk ny's vein of black comedy earned him the epithet "master of the grotesque" for the popular dramatizations of these and other novels. The Flower Show (1977) is rk ny's last novel and his most widely translated work of fiction.
The Flower Show and The Toth Family, two novellas in one volume by Istv n rk ny (1912-79), introduce to an English-speaking audience a Hungarian writer with a keen sense of the absurdities of modern life. In the '60s and '70s, rk ny's vein of black comedy earned him the epithet "master of the grotesque" for the popular dramatizations of these and other novels. The Flower Show (1977) is rk ny's last novel and his most widely translated work of fiction. With consummate irony, the author exploits our universal unease in the face of death, the desire to "star" taken to its ultimate absurdity by playing the lead in one's own demise, and the voyeurism of the modern media. In The Toth Family (1967) a mad army major on leave terrorizes a village fireman and his family, forcing them to cut and fold endless quantities of cardboard packing boxes every night until dawn. Originally written as a film script, the novel's scenes flicker past in lunatic array as rk ny satirizes Hungary of the early '40s and the acquiescence of a quasi-feudal, nationalistic, caste-ridden society to the authoritarian state of Nazi Germany. The impression is as if the Marx Brothers had been born out of Dr. Strangelove.Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Published: 05/17/1982
ISBN: 9780811208376
Pages: 176
Weight: 0.43lbs
Size: 7.93h x 5.22w x 0.47d
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4.8 ★★★★★
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★★★★★ 5
Truly, the best we could do
Format: Kindle
An excerpt from my analysis essay I submitted for my literature course: By revisiting her family’s past from before, during, and after the Vietnam War, she gained a deeper understanding of the emotional burdens her parents carried and the sacrifices they made that defined the entirety of their lives. Bui’s illustrated graphic memoir reveals that trauma does not simply disappear over time; instead, it becomes inherited, processed, and transformed. Through this process, Thi Bui is able to move toward empathy for her parents, acceptance of who they are, and a more complete sense of self.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2026
★★★★★ 5
Phenomenal. A must-read!
Format: Paperback
I first learned about this book only a week ago when visiting my sister for Thanksgiving in Eugene, Oregon. We went to the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art where I saw some work on display by the author, and there was a copy of her book available to look at, so I perused through and decided to buy it and read it. I'm so glad that I did! This is an incredible, poetic story that spans four generations, multiple wars and conflicts, and examines the fragility of the author's relationship with her parents and with her sense of place and motherhood. This book is one of the best I've read in a long time, and the art is moving and beautiful. It gave me new insight into the struggles of refugee life, and created a truly relatable narrative. I devoured this story in one Saturday. I highly recommend it.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2018
★★★★★ 5
A well composed memoir
Format: Paperback
Full review on nguyentoread.com
The Best We Could Do is Thi Bui's graphic memoir. Thi was born in Vietnam three months before the Vietnam War reached what we consider to be the end of the war. She came to America with her family in 1978. Bui's memoir spans multiple generations. In learning of her mother's and father's pasts, we learn the history of their parents. We see the struggles and pains of two people from very different walks of life trying to live during a time of war and chaos. We see glimpses of the agony everyone in the middle of the Vietnam War faced. Those who were not directly involved on either side but were caught in the middle of larger powers at war. This memoir more closely details the lives of her parents leading up to them arriving in America and making their life there. I was unsure if this memoir would focus largely on the experience of being a Vietnamese immigrant in America. There were parts that showed how it was for Bui's parents in a country where tensions were still high after the Vietnam War, where discrimination largely due to that was overt, and where degrees were not recognized and people who had spent their lives working and creating careers for themselves were not qualified for most work and had to hurdle multiple challenges to learn a language and complete education all over again if they wanted to provide a better life for their children. What Bui so beautifully captures in this memoir is the why behind how her parents were in raising her. Although Bui was born in Vietnam she was young when her family arrived in America. So I think her experience is one that many first generation Vietnamese-American people of my generation can understand and sympathize with. The wanting to know why their parents are the way they are but unable to ask because many have parents, like Bui's mother, who reluctantly share their stories and don't allow their children that glimpse that could help them better understand. In the panel which was most poignant to me, Bui draws her father as he looks over her work that would become The Best We Could Do. He says "You know how it was for me. And why later I wouldn't be... normal."
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Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2019
★★★★★ 5
This book made me love my parents more
Format: Kindle
I loved the raw depictions of vietnamese history and human emotions. I recommend this book to anyone experiencing intergenerational trauma. 5 stars, this book helped me understand my father and mother just a little more, and that is priceless
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Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2025
★★★★★ 5
Excellent customer service
Format: Paperback
Totally recommendable.
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Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2019