This book is a true life account seen through the life Seng Kok Ung. It details what happened to the people of Cambodia when the Khmer Rouge took over the country in 1975. The Khmer Rouge forced every person who lived in cities out to the countryside to work in the rice fields. The Khmer Rouge wanted to form a true communist styled agrarian society and in the process ended up starving or outright killing of more than 3 million of their fellow countryman. The book is a captivating tale of survival, loss, death, indescribable pain. Seng somehow managed to not only stay alive but was able to bring his family out of Cambodia to America where he became the quintessential American success story.