A momentous literary debut: the life of a Vietnamese family in America luminously observed through the knowing eyes of a child.

In 1978 six refugees — a girl, her father, and four "uncles" — are pulled from the sea to begin a new life in San Diego. In the child's imagination, the world of itchy dresses and run-down apartments is transmuted into an unearthly realm: she sees everything intensely, hears the distress calls of inanimate objects and waits for her mother to join her.

But life loses none of its strangeness when the family is reunited. As the girl grows, her matter-of-fact innocence eddies increasingly around opaque and ghostly traumas: the cataclysm that engulfed her homeland, the memory of a brother who drowned and, most inescapable, her father's hopeless rage for a father's order.

In The Gangster We Are All Looking For, Le Thi Diem Thuy has illuminated a world of great beauty and enormous sorrows. Here is an authentically original story of finding one's place and voice in America.

"[P]oetically spare but psychologically rich....As Le's narrator grows into adolescence, her perspective expands accordingly, illuminating not only her parents' passionate but violently troubled marriage...but also the many horrific and indelible psychic consequences of war. There is much pain in this exquisite novel, and much beauty." Donna Seaman, Booklist

"Lê captures the magical thinking of childhood with its shifting awareness of the wonders and apprehensions of life." Hugh Garvey, Village Voice Literary Supplement

"Slender and elegant. . . . A beautifully rendered description of the personal, psychological and historical threads that link father to daughter." — Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Le captures the magical thinking of childhood with its shifting awareness of the wonders and apprehensions of life." — Village Voice Literary Supplement

"Le allows no sentimentality to creep into this work... a stark and significant work that will challenge readers." Publishers Weekly

"A series of exquisite vignettes told through the eyes of an astonishingly observant Vietnamese girl... it's a window into a sadness we've heard about but seldom understood." Anne Stephenson, Arizona Republic

"The Gangster We Are All Looking For is a lucid and important work about lives set adrift on the uncertain currents of world events, fate and memory." Margaria Fichtner, Miami Herald

This acclaimed novel reveals the life of a Vietnamese family in America through the knowing eyes of a child finding her place and voice in a new country.

In 1978 six refugees — a girl, her father, and four "uncles" — are pulled from the sea to begin a new life in San Diego. In the child's imagination, the world is transmuted into an unearthly realm: she sees everything intensely, hears the distress calls of inanimate objects, and waits for her mother to join her. But life loses none of its strangeness when the family is reunited. As the girl grows, her matter-of-fact innocence eddies increasingly around opaque and ghostly traumas: the cataclysm that engulfed her homeland, the memory of a brother who drowned and, most inescapable, her father's hopeless rage.

Le Thi Diem Thuy [pronounced LAY TEE YIM TWEE] was born in Vietnam and now lives in western Massachusetts.