Birds of Paradise Lost: Stories
Mar 2012 · Red Hen Press
Ebook
216
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About this ebook
From the award-winning author of Perfume Dreams, a collection of thirteen short stories following Vietnamese immigrants new to the United States.
The thirteen stories in Birds of Paradise Lost shimmer with humor and pathos as they chronicle the anguish and joy and bravery of America’s newest Americans, the troubled lives of those who fled Vietnam and remade themselves in the San Francisco Bay Area. The past—memories of war and its aftermath, of murder, arrest, re-education camps and new economic zones, of escape and shipwreck and atrocity—is ever present in these wise and compassionate stories. It plays itself out in surprising ways in the lives of people who thought they had moved beyond the nightmares of war and exodus. It comes back on TV in the form of a confession from a cannibal; it enters the Vietnamese restaurant as a Vietnam Vet with a shameful secret; it articulates itself in the peculiar tics of a man with Tourette’s Syndrome who struggles to deal with a profound tragedy. Birds of Paradise Lost is an emotional tour de force, intricately rendering the false starts and revelations in the struggle for integration, and in so doing, the human heart.
*Finalist for the California Book Award*
“His stories are elegant and humane and funny and sad. Lam has instantly established himself as one of our finest fiction writers.” —Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Perfume Mountain
“Read Andrew Lam, and bask in his love of language, and his compassion for people, both those here and those far away.” —Maxine Hong Kingston, award-winning author of The Woman Warrior
The thirteen stories in Birds of Paradise Lost shimmer with humor and pathos as they chronicle the anguish and joy and bravery of America’s newest Americans, the troubled lives of those who fled Vietnam and remade themselves in the San Francisco Bay Area. The past—memories of war and its aftermath, of murder, arrest, re-education camps and new economic zones, of escape and shipwreck and atrocity—is ever present in these wise and compassionate stories. It plays itself out in surprising ways in the lives of people who thought they had moved beyond the nightmares of war and exodus. It comes back on TV in the form of a confession from a cannibal; it enters the Vietnamese restaurant as a Vietnam Vet with a shameful secret; it articulates itself in the peculiar tics of a man with Tourette’s Syndrome who struggles to deal with a profound tragedy. Birds of Paradise Lost is an emotional tour de force, intricately rendering the false starts and revelations in the struggle for integration, and in so doing, the human heart.
*Finalist for the California Book Award*
“His stories are elegant and humane and funny and sad. Lam has instantly established himself as one of our finest fiction writers.” —Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Perfume Mountain
“Read Andrew Lam, and bask in his love of language, and his compassion for people, both those here and those far away.” —Maxine Hong Kingston, award-winning author of The Woman Warrior
About the author
Andrew Lam is the author ofPerfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora, which won the 2006 PEN Open Book Award, andEast Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres. Lam is an editor and cofounder of New American Media, an association of over two thousand ethnic media outlets in America. He was a regular commentator on NPR sAll Things Consideredfor many years, and was the subject of a 2004 PBS documentary calledMy Journey Home. His essays have appeared in newspapers and magazines such as TheNew York Times, The LA Times, theSan Francisco Chronicle, The Baltimore Sun, The Atlanta Journal, theChicago Tribune, Mother Jones, andThe Nation, among many others. His short stories have been widely taught and anthologized.Birds of Paradise Lostis his first story collection. He lives in San Francisco."
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