 Huong's first book, a volume of stories called "Chân dung người hàng xóm" ["Portrait of a Neighbor"] (1985), revealed both her strengths and weaknesses.In the story "Thợ làm móng tay" ["The Manicurist"], fine descriptive passages are perverted by a heavy-handed political subtext.Its bias can be traced to the war, in which both North and South had demonized the other