“The quest for a new identity by the immigrant generation of Vietnamese-Americans.”
Happy Pub Day to Stories from the Edge of the Sea!
Andew Lam is a Vietnamese American author and journalist known for his exploration of the Vietnamese diaspora and immigrant experiences. Lam's latest work, "Stories from the Edge of the Sea," is a collection of fourteen short stories that delve into themes of love, loss, lust, and grief among Vietnamese immigrants and their descendants in California. The narratives range from a younger dancer being haunted by memories of almost dying on a boat when they escaped from Vietnam, a widow processing her husband’s death through frantic Facebook postings, and a writer entering an old lover’s home and seeing a ghost at twilight. Grappling with identity and belonging, this book will feel nostalgic and grave–showcasing the American dream through the eyes of Vietnamese immigrants hoping to find their way.
Scroll through Andrew Lam’s Red Hen author page here.
https://redhen.org/book_author/andrew-lam/
Praise for Stories from the Edge of the Sea
“Andrew Lam’s Stories from The Edge of the Sea beautifully offers tales of longing, repression, and love as he recalls experiences of immigration and confronts the ruptures amidst generational memories. These stories are indelible, profound, and unforgettable.”
—Lynn Novick, codirector of The Vietnam War
“No one maps the moveable feast of the Vietnamese diaspora like Andrew Lam. From stand-up comedians to social chameleons, from college student strivers to lovelorn lawyers taking a striptease walk on the wild side, Lam’s characters feel like old friends with shocking secrets to unfold—forced to confront the lost country of the human heart.”
—Scott Lankford, author of Tahoe Beneath the Surface
“In this personal collection of stories, Andrew Lam bathes readers in a soup of memory. From Vietnamese wartime villas to college flats in Berkeley, we taste the desires of comedians, soldiers, tomboys, friends, queers, mothers, and refugees. Lam reveals a loving community where acts of care are savored and stirred to perfection.”
—Long Bui, author of Returns of War: South Vietnam and the Price of Refugee Memory
Check out the excerpt from the short story, Agape at the Guggenheim
I have not prayed in front of a Buddha since I came to America more than twenty years ago, mind you. I was but six going on seven, and that was the last time. Old enough to remember praying with mother for a million things. We prayed for the war to end, then later for my father to be released from that infernal commie gulag, for me to receive good grades, and secretly I prayed for my mother to remain beautiful forever and always be by my side.
Buddha never granted me any of these wishes, except that the war did end, but it ended so badly. My family and I fled out to sea. My father died a year after his release back home, a broken man in a broken shed, long before we could possibly sponsor him over. And my mother, who is still beautiful, but whose hair turned gray overnight after his death, is now estranged from me—she can’t handle the gay thing, being so pious—so I stopped praying.
But this morning, years after I had given up talking to the dead ancestors and all the Buddhas, years after I have moved on from one language to another, having changed my name and allegiance, I started to pray at the Guggenheim.
Order Stories from the Edge of the Sea here,