A word of caution: this book begins very slowly. Khamkeo goes on for pages and pages about the political situation in Laos. I understand the need to create context for his story, but I think he went a bit overboard. I kept thinking, gosh, this is rather dull, am I going to be able to finish this? But after Khamkeo's arrest (about page 150), things picked up considerably and I didn't want to put the book down.

Except for its somewhat unusual setting -- there are not a lot of Laotian authors in the West, after all -- this is a fairly typical gulag memoir. Starvation, brutalization, arbitrary executions, hope of release, etc. If you like that sort of thing, I would highly recommend this book. I enjoyed it a great deal once the story took off. ( )