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More copies of this ISBN:This title in other formats:The Gangster We Are All Looking Forby Thi Diem Thuy Le
Staff Pick
File under: Books to be devoured in one sitting. Dreamscapes. The literature of immigration, the literature of exile. Southeast Asia. Southern California. Daughters. Memory. Blood. Water. Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments: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. Review:"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 Review:"Le allows no sentimentality to creep into this work... a stark and significant work that will challenge readers." Publishers Weekly Review:"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 Review:"[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 Review:"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 Review:"Le captures the magical thinking of childhood with its shifting awareness of the wonders and apprehensions of life." Hugh Garvey, Village Voice Literary Supplement Review:"A brilliant evocation of human sorrow and desire. . . . Heartbreaking and exhilarating. . . . As vivid as a fairy tale, as allusive as a poem." The New York Times Book Review Review:"Breathtaking. . . . Flows in luminous paragraphs that mingle past and present, creating a fluid sense of time." — Vogue Synopsis: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. About the AuthorLe thi diem thuy was born in Phan Thiet, southern Vietnam. She and her father left Vietnam in 1978, by boat, eventually settling in Southern California. le is currently a Radcliffe Fellow and resides in western Massachusetts. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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