Tu' is a young tour guide working in Hanoi. As he leads bands of Westerners on 'war tours' through the scarred landscape of Vietnam, he wonders what it is his clients see - and what they miss entirely. Maggie is Vietnamese by birth but has lived most of her life in the U.S. Returning to her homeland, she sifts through history for clues as to the fate of her dissident father. Witness to both their stories, Old Man Hung has lived through decades of political upheaval.
But Hung has found a way to provide hope in his waterside community: The Beauty of Humanity Movement. The Beauty of Humanity Movement is a keenly observed and skillfully wrought novel about the reverberation of conflict through generations, the enduring legacy of art, and the redemption, and renewal, of long-lost love.