The Happy List: A Memoir Paperback – January 9, 2026

The Happy List is the true story of how Thu Nguyen, a ten-year-old Vietnamese girl and her family escaped Vietnam after the fall of Saigon. It is a story that Thu wanted written so that her daughters would understand what her experiences had been to leave a communist country to seek freedom. After Thu's father, a South Vietnamese officer, refused to leave his family and his newborn baby, he was imprisoned by the North Vietnamese. His wife, a beautiful Vietnamese mother, evaded the North Vietnamese. She and her six young daughters fled, eventually coming to America, sacrificing everything and fulfilling a promise she had made to her husband. The girls endured months of hiding, a treacherous journey on the sea, and years of deprivation in a Hong Kong refugee camp. Separated for more than fifteen years, Thu's father was tortured in the notorious Song Cai prison camp. The Happy List is a story of danger, tremendous courage--and miracles. Read more