Short stories examine lives shaped by the Vietnamese refugee experience.
Lam and his family fled Vietnam in April, 1975, when he just 11 years old. While the stories in this rich, complex collection cover a wide swath of subjects, this autobiography informs his characters’ feelings, their relationships to family, friends, employers, and homelands past and present. In “This Isle Is Full of Noises,” Lam begins by describing an island in the Gulf of Thailand that features makeshift tombstones and a grief-stricken woman.