We Should Never Meet: Stories
- ISBN-10
- 1429941987
- ISBN-13
- 9781429941983
- Category
- Fiction
- Pages
- 256
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2005-11-15
- Publisher
- St. Martin's Press
- Author
- Aimee Phan
Description
Compelling, moving, and beautifully written, the interlinked stories that make up We Should Never Meet alternate between Saigon before the city's fall in 1975 and present-day "Little Saigon" in Southern California---exploring the reverberations of the Vietnam War in a completely new light. Intersecting the lives of eight characters across three decades and two continents, these stories dramatize the events of Operation Babylift, the U.S.-led evacuation of thousands of Vietnamese orphans to America just weeks before the fall of Saigon. Unwitting reminders of the war, these children were considered bui doi, the dust of life, and faced an uncertain, dangerous existence if left behind in Vietnam. Four of the stories follow the saga of one orphan's journey from the points-of-view of a teenage mother, a duck farmer and a Catholic nun from the Mekong Delta, a social worker in Saigon, and a volunteer doctor from America. The other four take place twenty years later and chronicle the lives of four Vietnamese orphans now living in America: Kim, an embittered Amerasian searching for her unknown mother; Vinh, her gang member ex-boyfriend who preys on Vietnamese families; Mai, an ambitious orphan who faces her emancipation from the American foster-care system; and Huan, an Amerasian adopted by a white family, who returns to Vietnam with his adoptive mother. We Should Never Meet is one of those rare books that truly takes an original look at the human condition---and marks the exciting debut of a major new writer for our time.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Because You'll Never Meet Me
By Leah ThomasOllie and Moritz are two teenagers who will never meet.
-
Gods Go Begging
By Alfredo VéaGods Go Begging is a new classic of Latino literature, a literary detective novel that moves seamlessly between the jungles of Vietnam and the streets of modern day San Francisco.
-
Strange Folk You’ll Never Meet
By A.A. BalaskovitsFrom A.A. Balaskovits, author of Magic for Unlucky Girls, this new collection of unusual, fabulist fiction leads you down strange paths for dark encounters with familiar fairy tales, odd people from history, and weirdos who may be living ...
-
Hope We Never Meet Again
By Srinath KrishnamoorthyWhat triggers it all, is the death of a dear friend that Varun decides to avenge. What happens in the end? How are all these stories connected? Does love outlast death and time?
-
The Reeducation of Cherry Truong: A Novel
By Aimee PhanThe Reeducation of Cherry Truong tells the story of two fierce and unforgettable families, the Truongs and the Vos: their harrowing escape from Vietnam after the war, the betrayal that divided them, and the stubborn memories that continue ...
-
Nowhere Near You
By Leah ThomasOllie and Moritz might never meet, but their friendship knows no bounds.
-
The Flatshare: A Novel
By Beth O'LearyWhat if your roommate is your soul mate? A joyful, quirky romantic comedy, Beth O'Leary's The Flatshare is a feel-good novel about finding love in the most unexpected of ways. Tiffy and Leon share an apartment.
-
Never Let Me Go
By Kazuo IshiguroAcclaim for Kazuo Ishiguro's N E V E R L E T M E G O FINAL IST FOR T H E M A N B O O KER PRIZE 'Kazuo Ishiguro is a master storyteller, in a class of his own making. ... [He] throws light on ordinary human life, the human soul, ...
-
Never Meant to Meet You
By Alli Frank, Asha YoumansWhile dealing with a new class of kindergarteners, her son's budding manhood and her annoying ex-husband, Marjette Lewis, after tragedy strikes her street, navigates the ritual of loss with the help of her neighbor, and together they find ...
-
Before We Were Strangers: A Love Story
By Renée CarlinoFrom the USA TODAY bestselling author of Sweet Thing and Nowhere But Here comes a love story about a Craigslist “missed connection” post that gives two people a second chance at love fifteen years after they were separated in New York ...