Heartbreaking: A Survival Memoir (of a survivor of the killing fields of Cambodia) is a story about a man from his childhood up to the present time. It entails his struggles to survive many brutal events in Cambodia from the coup d'etat of 1970, the fall of the Khmer Republic in 1975, and the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979. The Khmer Rouge Communist Party of Cambodia purged the cities and countryside of intellectuals, rival politicians, monks, and teachers. The extremeness of this group led to a country that had no religion, no free market, no schools, no families, and a closed border. Citizens attempt to hide their old lives from ears outside the walls while food becomes dangerously scarce in the so-called agrarian utopia. The new party in charge invents ways of making families disappear. It describes the events of each conflict as they unfold, where each time he somehow manages to survive the ordeal to tell the story. After the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1979, he found a way to provide for his family's needs. Vanny and his family realized they would be better off leaving the land they called home for so many years. He led his family and friends to the refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines. After that, Vanny and his family were transported to America to start a new life. Upon arriving in America, he managed to work hard at his job while attending school.