Vicky Nguyen, BOAT BABY: A Memoir
Totally Booked with Zibby
Zibby Owens
4.5 • 643 Ratings
🗓️ 10 April 2025
⏱️ 24 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Zibby interviews NBC News correspondent and anchor Vicky Nguyen about her funny, nostalgic, and poignant new memoir, BOAT BABY. Vicky describes her family’s daring escape from communist Vietnam and her unlikely journey from refugee to reporter, sharing personal stories of resilience, identity, and family. She recounts unbelievable moments—like recognizing her uncle’s murderer while dining in a San Jose restaurant—and reflects on how she has navigated marriage, career, and motherhood. The conversation also touches on fate, trauma, and triumph, including a quiet Me Too moment.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zivie. |
| 0:06.3 | Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. |
| 0:08.9 | In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time. |
| 0:18.6 | As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive |
| 0:24.0 | look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't |
| 0:29.3 | have to. |
| 0:30.3 | Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day. |
| 0:36.3 | For more information, go to zibbymedia.com and follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens. |
| 0:44.5 | Vicki Noyan is the author of Boat Baby, a memoir. |
| 0:48.1 | Vicky is an NBC News senior consumer investigative correspondent and anchor of NBC News Daily. She reports for the Today Show, |
| 0:56.3 | Nightly News with Lester Holt, and NBC News Now. She graduated as valedictorian from the University of |
| 1:01.6 | San Francisco. Vicki lives in New York with her husband and three daughters. Her parents are |
| 1:06.1 | always nearby. Hi, Vicki. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked with Sibby to talk about |
| 1:10.9 | Boat Baby, your amazing memoir. Congratulations. Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be with you. Oh, first of all, let me just say I love how you wrote it. Your voice is approachable and easy. Like, you just want to be your friend reading this book. And it's like you're sitting down and telling us the story and it's just great. Like you just don't want to stop having the |
| 1:11.4 | conversation. |
| 1:32.1 | So thank you for that. Thank you for that because I don't know how to write in any other way than to |
| 1:37.4 | try to be conversational. And I am so glad that that came across and that you feel like you know me. |
| 1:43.5 | And hopefully that you could relate to some of the things that I across and that you feel like you know me and hopefully that you |
| 1:44.5 | could relate to some of the things that I experienced. And some of the early feedback I'm getting is, |
| 1:49.7 | you know, one of the most meaningful pieces of feedback I got is from someone who is 10 years |
| 1:53.8 | older than me, a colleague of mine here at NBC News that I only know via email. I literally, |
| 1:59.8 | we just kind of have to have to email back and forth |
... |
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