Vanity of Vanities, CG FEWSTON’s first full-length novel and third book, was published in 2011.
When U.S. Historian John Abbott moves to modern day Vietnam, he is emotionally torn between his past and his future. In 1969 his father went missing in Vietnam, but not before fathering a son with a local woman named Chi.
Mỹ Linh, Abbott’s girlfriend and Vietnamese national, accidentally uncovers the forty-year-old secret claiming to have found Abbott’s lost step-brother, Nguyen, and possibly providing Abbott hope of once again having a family to call his own. They both decide to track down Nguyen and discover he has a family, including a daughter named Phuong.
Meanwhile, Mỹ Linh is pregnant with twins and Abbott is confronted with the fortieth anniversary of his grandfather’s death that he witnessed tragically. Only his best friend, Maddox, seems to have an explanation for the turmoil Abbott faces and acts like a beacon of light for the lost soul.
When Maddox is found dead in a hotel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia he leaves Abbott with a coded message, leading him to the Angkor temples and to the possibility of a long undiscovered treasure. Abbott and Danielle, a secret companion to the American, are accidentally found in a plot of murder and betrayal that could cost them their lives, if not the temple’s fortune.
The mystery deepens as Abbott enters the forgotten sanctuary of the temple and encounters a supernatural force ready to end the fate of humankind once and for all.
Vanity of Vanities is a novel filled with romance and heartache while revolving within a richly historical and modern account of Texas and Vietnam.
Life often takes daunting and surprising paths with the power of fate guiding true love through an unforgettable story in a strange new land hidden behind a veil of ancient and modern mystery.
~ Contact ~
For media, press, & publicity inquiries or for speaking engagement requests & inquiries: cgfewston [at] gmail [dot] com
The American novelist CG FEWSTON has been a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome (Italy), a Visiting Fellow at Hong Kong’s CityU, & he’s been a member of the Hemingway Society, Americans for the Arts, PEN America, Club Med, & the Royal Society of Literature. He’s also been a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) based in London.
He’s the author of several short stories and novels. His works include A Father’s Son (2005), The New America: A Collection (2007), The Mystic’s Smile ~ A Play in 3 Acts (2007), Vanity of Vanities (2011), A Time to Love in Tehran (2015), Little Hometown, America (2020), and A Time to Forget in East Berlin (2022).
Forthcoming: Conquergood & the Center of the Intelligible Mystery of Being; and, The Endless Endeavor of Excellence.
He has a B.A. in English, an M.Ed. in Higher Education Leadership (honors), an M.A. in Literature (honors), and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing & Fiction. He was born in Texas in 1979.
