A well-meaning doctor shaves two minutes from a hospital record so a baby’s birthday is not Christmas Day. Nineteen years later, December 24th is the second date drawn in the U.S. draft lottery—sending a young man to Vietnam.

 

Richie Hawkins is a middle-class kid from Dallas with college and medical school ambitions. Those plans are derailed when he is drafted and sent to fight in a war he doesn’t believe in. When his last mission, only days before completing his Vietnam tour, tragically fails, Richie returns home physically intact but haunted by violent memories and survivor’s guilt.

 

Linh Huang is born in a remote hamlet in the Central Highlands of Vietnam on the eve of the 1968 Tet Offensive. When her family is fractured by the chaos of war, Linh becomes an orphan and is evacuated during Operation Babylift. Adopted by a loving couple, she builds a new life in America but confronts the cruelty of racism while grappling with issues of her identity.

 

A Confluence of Fates is the story of a young man sent to Vietnam and the ripple effects of a split-second decision to save a young girl—but the story extends well beyond the war’s end. Alternating between Richie and Linh over decades, the book allows readers to experience the full weight of each life independently until fate, once again, intervenes.