Nghiem Tran’s debut novella, We’re Safe When We’re Alone, opens with a straightforward premise: “I have lived in the mansion my whole life. I was born here. I have never left.” The narrator, simply named Son, lives in the mansion with Father. Father leaves each morning for work, traveling to an undisclosed location for an unknown purpose. He returns every evening to Son. Outside the mansion are ghosts.

While Father has not told Son much about the world he lives in, a few details are clear. Once upon a time, Father saved Son from “the brink of death” and brought him to “the world in between, where the collector of souls cannot reach” him.  Son has been instructed to remain inside the mansion, reading books, playing the piano, and waiting for Father to return. The world outside is dangerous: beauty, desire, and longing are all traps that give the ghosts access to their safe space and to themselves, where the ghosts “have the tools to carve a space wide enough for the heart to collapse in on itself.”  Precisely what this means is unclear, but like all good children, Son does what he is told—until one day, Father returns home with a different story:

‘I fear I’ve done you a great disservice. You’ve lived inside these walls all your life. You’ve never taken a single step outside the door. I’m no longer certain that was the right decision. There is much you’ve never seen. So many experiences I’ve prevented you from having. It’s true this world is more treacherous than apparent to the eye. But it’s also true you are strong enough to withstand it. I should’ve had more faith in you. I shouldn’t have been so afraid. I knew you would suffer if you went out into the world, but that is the only way to grow. You would have found your own path through it, just as I have.’      

From that moment, everything changes for Son. The comfortably isolated world of the mansion is wrested from him, and he must not only interact with but also learn to coexist with the ghosts outside. At the same time, there appears to be a bigger threat that Son glimpses inside the attic:

Crouching underneath the window, shadowed by the storm, is a dark figure … Instead of running away screaming, I am silent. Fear hushes my body. I approach the figure, sensing something familiar about him. He does not look dangerous. He is naked. His limbs are thin and weak. He can’t even push himself up from the floor … Shadows cling to him like skin-tight clothing. He moans and whimpers.   

Brief as it is, the novella punches above its weight in terms of theme and genre. It is simultaneously a ghost story, with the familiar beats and elements of a tale told around a campfire, a coming-of-age story, a dystopian portrait of a blighted and collapsing ecosystem, and an allegory of the dual perils of isolation and assimilation. Tran balances these elements with a light, expert hand, keeping the story moving while allowing the reader to linger over moments of tension and imagery that resonate beyond the page.

Tran’s prose style is deft yet simple. There are no linguistic pyrotechnics here, no gaudy, maximalist descriptions. Tran’s controlled style creates a sense of building momentum. Sentences function like arrows that land in the reader’s brain or stomach or heart, leaving the reader with piercing insights that reverberate long after the book ends. In one early scene, Son contemplates Father’s direction to leave the safety of the mansion and interact with the ghosts outside: 

I cannot distinguish what will harm me from what will help me. If I leave, I would be at the mercy of the ghosts. Father has grown tired. He does not want to be in control anymore, the one with knowledge to dispense. His obligation to confront the restless ghosts day after day is a form of entrapment. Instead, Father wants to kneel before a higher power and have it dictate how his life should be.    

The plot unfolds organically with the quiet certainty and intuitive surrealism of a nightmare. Characters disappear at moments of heightened tension and shift from friendly to foreboding in the blink of an eye; familiar details of the landscape transform in seconds.  However, nothing feels like a “gotcha” or like weirdness for its own sake. Each moment aligns with the story as ghost story and with the story as an allegory, and which allegory the story prioritizes shifts as the story goes on. As he winds up this lucid and compelling read, Tran achieves the impossible by delivering an ending that is both emotionally and thematically satisfying, a fitting resolution to Son’s struggle to find his own path: “Human beings are not meant to be strong on our own. We are meant to serve something else. But I cannot accept the rule of the ghosts. They take me further from the things I love.” 

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Nghiem Tran was born in Vietnam and raised in Kansas. A Kundiman fellow, he has received degrees from Vassar College and Syracuse University. We’re Safe When We’re Alone is his first book.

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Melissa Reddish’s stories have appeared in Gargoyle, Raleigh Review, and Grist, among others. She is the author of My Father is an Angry Storm Cloud (Tailwinds Press, 2016), Girl & Flame (Conium Books, 2017) and The Lives We’ve Yet to Live (Tailwinds Press, 2022).