The gangster we are all looking for

by Thi Diem Thúy Lê

Paperback, 2004

Status

Available

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Collection

Delphine & François-Paul Briand Collection

Publication

New York : Anchor Books, 2004.

Description

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.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member soylentgreen23

A charming little book, written in a spare style that reminded me at times of Richard Brautigan. It's interesting and at times moving - the story of a little girl brought to California from Vietnam, and some of her struggles growing up different, dealing with parents who feel the loss of their home

culture, and the death of her brother in early childhood.

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LibraryThing member LJuneOsborne

Reading this book was for an English class, and I'm very glad for it, as I doubt I would have come across it otherwise.

I've read a handful of books about Vietnamese people living in America after the war, my favorite being Catfish and Mandala by Andrew X. Pham. This book is focused more on the

child's view of the story, specifically the relationship between the narrator and her father, who she refers to as Ba. In the first part of the book Ba is a sort of protector as she struggles to understand American life and customs, while in the rest his happiness deteriorates and he begins drinking heavily. The prose is delightful and simple, filled with the type of wise words one comes to expect when reading something written by, or from the point of view of, children. A child's voice brings a profound sense of innocence and double meaning to each sentence, phrase, and word.

The style of this book also reminded me of Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street but focusing on darker situations and feelings. Only 158 pages of memorable prose but I might have liked it better if it were longer. It feels like most all of the punchlines of each story were vague and full of hints, sometimes it would be nice if they were elaborated upon.

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LibraryThing member g0ldenboy

This is the third of three novels assigned to my college's Asian American Literature course. I'll give to to lê, she can write, but the plot is too sparse for my tastes, and I'd rather just read some poetry.

LibraryThing member Beej415

A moving and somewhat depressing story about home, cultural identity, assimilation, and cultural values. A young girl and her father come to the United States as one of many Vietnamese "boat people" in the 1970s. Her mother joins them later and the family plods from apartment to apartment trying,

it seems, constantly to start a life in this foreign place. The southern California in which the family finds itself is glossy and bright, but shallow and meaningless. And the memories of home become increasingly bittersweet.

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LibraryThing member Salsabrarian

Recollections and observations of life in America through the eyes of a young Vietnamese refugee girl. She lives first with her father and four "uncles" in San Diego; later her mother joins them. All poetic description but no action, no forward motion.

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