Reviews
"Seven stories set around the globe-from Iowa to Tehran, Manhattan to Australia, and Colombia to Hiroshima-make up Vietnam-born Nam Le's dynamic debut collection, "The Boat, "in which achingly familiar alliances converge in ingeniously unlikely places." -Lisa Shea, "Elle" "Wide-ranging, knife-sharp stories by a masterly 29-year-old. Nam Le was born in Vietnam and raised in Australia, yet his debut collection of stories, "The Boat, "reveals as mature and certain an American voice as just about any native-born writer twice his age. His prose evokes Philip Roth's-sure of itself, clean, and invisibly effective. These muscular and psychologically rich narratives take place in the United States, Australia, Colombia, and in a storm-tossed boat in the South China Sea [and] contend with a startlingly wide array of characters . . . What's notable is the structural soundness of these powerful and far-ranging pieces: Each one is built to exactly the shape, and flows in exactly the tone and language, that will suit the needs of the story. The final and longest story in the book, 'The Boat, ' takes on the deepest issues of life, love, and death, something worthy of Conrad or James. Nam Le is a remarkably sophisticated new writer." -Vince Passaro, "O, The Oprah Magazine" "So engaging, so unequivocally well done, ["The Boat"] is sure to appeal to any fan of good writing. From the opening tale, it's hard not to be giddy. ['Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice'] is a brilliantly self-conscious and humorous slice of the writing life, which doubles as a poignant story about fathers and sons and family tragedies. . . . Things only get better from there. Nam Le is achameleon of voices and points of view, leading the reader through the experiences of an older man, a disillusioned young woman, a boy on the cusp of adulthood, and a teenage girl. "The Boat" takes us all over the world with fantastic verisimilitude. . . . 'Halflead Bay' is an enviable achievement-an adolescent's battle to find courage as his life begins to turn upside down, the story developed with perfect suspense. . . . And the title story offers urgency, poignancy and heartbreaking tragedy. As if the stories themselves weren't enough to make "The Boat "a worthy summer read, the skill of the author is a spectacle to behold. He manages to avoid so many pitfalls. He doesn't shy away from stark and disturbing images, for example, yet he doesn't rely on the grotesque to create effective writing. The reader can sense his personal investment in the work, but the stories aren't even close to self-indulgent. It's enough to give a person a literary crush. Each story is dark and deep, exquisitely constructed and beautifully told. Nam Le is a studied, competent and graceful writer, and "The Boat "is both a contemporary treasure and a harbinger of good things to come." -Jessica Inman, "BookPage" "The protagonist of the first story in this stellar debut collection is the Vietnam-born Nam, a former lawyer from Australia trying to meet a deadline at the Iowa Writers' Workshop when his estranged father blows into town. Will this [collection] be a bunch of autobiographical stories exemplifying 'ethnic fiction' (which the story actually managed, rather slyly, to dismiss)? Absolutely not-unless Le is also a 14-year-old assassin in Colombia, asked to kill a friend; a crotchety if successfulpainter coming to terms with a cancer diagnosis just as the daughter he's never met prepares for her Carnegie Hall debut; a high school boy in Australia who's achieved a modest sports victory and must face down a bully as his mother faces death; and an American woman visiting a friend in Tehran who risks her life battling the regime. Le writes rawly rigorous stories that capture entire worlds; each character is distinctive and fully fleshed out, each plot eventful as a full-length novel but artfully compressed. Highly recommended." -Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal, "Remarkable . . . The Boat catches people in moments of extremis, confronted by death or loss or terror (or all three) and forced to grapple at the most fundamental level with who they are and what they want or believe. Whether it's the prospect of dying at sea or being shot by a drug kingpin or losing family members in a war, Nam Le's people are individuals trapped in the crosshairs of fate, forced to choose whether they will react like deer caught in the headlights, or will find a way to confront or disarm the situation. The opening story of this volume, 'Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice,' and its singular masterpiece, features a narrator who shares a name and certain biographical details with the author . . . The other tales in this book, however, circumnavigate the globe, demonstrating Mr. Le's astonishing ability to channel the experiences of a multitude of characters, from a young child living in Hiroshima during World War II to a 14-year-old hit man in the barrios of Medellín to a high school jock in an Australian beach town. Mr. Le not only writes with an authority and poise rare even among longtime authors, but he also demonstrates an intuitive, gut-level ability to convey the psychological conflicts people experience when they find their own hopes and ambitions slamming up against familial expectations or the brute facts of history. By far the most powerful, most fully realized story in this collection, 'Love and Honor' begins as a fairly conventional account of a young writer suffering from writer's block and trying to cope with an unwanted visit from his father, who has flown in from Australia to see him. . . . As this story unfolds, it becomes a meditation not just on fathers and sons, but also on the burdens of history and the sense of guilt and responsibility that survivors often bequeath to their children. . . . [Le's] sympathy for his characters and his ability to write with both lyricism and emotional urgency lend his portraits enormous visceral power. . . . In the two stories that bookend this collection, he conveys what it might be like to have the Vietnam War as an inescapable fact of daily life, infecting every relationship and warping the trajectory of one's life. In 'The Boat' he does so directly with devastating results; in 'Love and Honor' he does so elliptically, creating a haunting marvel of a story that says as much about familial dreams and burdens as it does about the wages of history." Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "Not yet 30, [Nam Le] is already an extraordinarily accomplished and sophisticated writer. In [ The Boat 's] opening story, he plays with the elusive boundaries between truth and fiction . . . [ The Boat ] offers strong evidence that the most effective way to convey the universal human qualities Faulkner admired in literature is, paradoxically, through the individual and the particular. . . . The range of characters is unusual, but what is truly remarkable is that the language and tone of each [story] is perfectly suited to the characters and setting . . . The stories are so different from one another it is hard to believe all seven are the work of a single author. What they all have in common is that each one portrays its characters in a crisis that reveals resources of courage and resilience even he or she was not aware of. All but one of the stories concern what is arguably the deepest, most complex and most poignant of human relationships: the bond between parent and child. . . . The most moving and unforgettable is 'Halflead Bay' . . . Rarely has one read such a sensitive and empathetic treatment of adolescent angst, all the more remarkable because the story's main character is shy and inarticulate. . . . The story is especially memorable for its richly poetic Austr, "Remarkable . . .The Boatcatches people in moments of extremis, confronted by death or loss or terror (or all three) and forced to grapple at the most fundamental level with who they are and what they want or believe. Whether it's the prospect of dying at sea or being shot by a drug kingpin or losing family members in a war, Nam Le's people are individuals trapped in the crosshairs of fate, forced to choose whether they will react like deer caught in the headlights, or will find a way to confront or disarm the situation. The opening story of this volume, 'Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice,' and its singular masterpiece, features a narrator who shares a name and certain biographical details with the author . . . The other tales in this book, however, circumnavigate the globe, demonstrating Mr. Le's astonishing ability to channel the experiences of a multitude of characters, from a young child living in Hiroshima during World War II to a 14-year-old hit man in the barrios of Medellín to a high school jock in an Australian beach town. Mr. Le not only writes with an authority and poise rare even among longtime authors, but he also demonstrates an intuitive, gut-level ability to convey the psychological conflicts people experience when they find their own hopes and ambitions slamming up against familial expectations or the brute facts of history. By far the most powerful, most fully realized story in this collection, 'Love and Honor' begins as a fairly conventional account of a young writer suffering from writer's block and trying to cope with an unwanted visit from his father, who has flown in from Australia to see him. . . . As this story unfolds, it becomes a meditation not just on fathers and sons, but also on the burdens of history and the sense of guilt and responsibility that survivors often bequeath to their children. . . . [Le's] sympathy for his characters and his ability to write with both lyricism and emotional urgency lend his portraits enormous visceral power. . . . In the two stories that bookend this collection, he conveys what it might be like to have the Vietnam War as an inescapable fact of daily life, infecting every relationship and warping the trajectory of one's life. In 'The Boat' he does so directly with devastating results; in 'Love and Honor' he does so elliptically, creating a haunting marvel of a story that says as much about familial dreams and burdens as it does about the wages of history." Michiko Kakutani,The New York Times "Twenty-nine-year-old Nam Le demonstrates the aesthetic ambition and sentence-making chops of a much more experienced writer. . . . Each moment of technical brio [in the opening story] deepens the dramatization of the all-but-unspeakable power of love between parent and child. By the end, any perceptive reader will agree that the 'world could be shattered by a small stone dropped like a single syllable.' . . . Each [story] contemplates love with a sometimes unnerving ferocity. The range of settings and points of view inThe Boatbeggars belief, not least because the stories never betray an errant trace of the research that surely informs them. . . . [The title story] ends with an unforgettable scene of love and heartbreak. In each [story], Le parts veil after veil of illusion . . . Even if these stories were just competent, 'Halflead Bay' would makeThe Boatone of the strongest first books of fiction in the last 10 or 15 years. . . . The plot unfolds with remorseless logic, harsh beauty, and an almost unbearable tenderness that reminded me ofDubliners.[The story's] scenes [are] exact in their details and gorgeous in their musicality . . . I've been, "Seven stories set around the globefrom Iowa to Tehran, Manhattan to Australia, and Colombia to Hiroshimamake up Vietnam-born Nam Le's dynamic debut collection,The Boat,in which achingly familiar alliances converge in ingeniously unlikely places." Lisa Shea,Elle "Wide-ranging, knife-sharp stories by a masterly 29-year-old. Nam Le was born in Vietnam and raised in Australia, yet his debut collection of stories,The Boat,reveals as mature and certain an American voice as just about any native-born writer twice his age. His prose evokes Philip Roth'ssure of itself, clean, and invisibly effective. These muscular and psychologically rich narratives take place in the United States, Australia, Colombia, and in a storm-tossed boat in the South China Sea [and] contend with a startlingly wide array of characters . . . What's notable is the structural soundness of these powerful and far-ranging pieces: Each one is built to exactly the shape, and flows in exactly the tone and language, that will suit the needs of the story. The final and longest story in the book, 'The Boat,' takes on the deepest issues of life, love, and death, something worthy of Conrad or James. Nam Le is a remarkably sophisticated new writer." Vince Passaro,O, The Oprah Magazine "So engaging, so unequivocally well done, [The Boat] is sure to appeal to any fan of good writing. From the opening tale, it's hard not to be giddy. ['Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice'] is a brilliantly self-conscious and humorous slice of the writing life, which doubles as a poignant story about fathers and sons and family tragedies. . . . Things only get better from there. Nam Le is a chameleon of voices and points of view, leading the reader through the experiences of an older man, a disillusioned young woman, a boy on the cusp of adulthood, and a teenage girl.The Boattakes us all over the world with fantastic verisimilitude. . . . 'Halflead Bay' is an enviable achievementan adolescent's battle to find courage as his life begins to turn upside down, the story developed with perfect suspense. . . . And the title story offers urgency, poignancy and heartbreaking tragedy. As if the stories themselves weren't enough to makeThe Boata worthy summer read, the skill of the author is a spectacle to behold. He manages to avoid so many pitfalls. He doesn't shy away from stark and disturbing images, for example, yet he doesn't rely on the grotesque to create effective writing. The reader can sense his personal investment in the work, but the stories aren't even close to self-indulgent. It's enough to give a person a literary crush. Each story is dark and deep, exquisitely constructed and beautifully told. Nam Le is a studied, competent and graceful writer, andThe Boatis both a contemporary treasure and a harbinger of good things to come." Jessica Inman,BookPage "[The Boatis] set on six continents and at sea, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, [with] characters ranging in age from childhood through the senior years. Many [of the stories] explore the intricate loyalties and betrayals in family life: notably, 'Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice,' in which a Vietnamese Australian émigré studying at the University of Iowa's writers' program experiences his father's final brutality, and 'Halflead Bay,' in which a teenage boy struggles with the father and brother who rescue him from a vicious schoolmate. [The characters] are brought to life in p, "Remarkable . . .The Boatcatches people in moments of extremis, confronted by death or loss or terror (or all three) and forced to grapple at the most fundamental level with who they are and what they want or believe. Whether it's the prospect of dying at sea or being shot by a drug kingpin or losing family members in a war, Nam Le's people are individuals trapped in the crosshairs of fate, forced to choose whether they will react like deer caught in the headlights, or will find a way to confront or disarm the situation. The opening story of this volume, 'Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice,' and its singular masterpiece, features a narrator who shares a name and certain biographical details with the author . . . The other tales in this book, however, circumnavigate the globe, demonstrating Mr. Le's astonishing ability to channel the experiences of a multitude of characters, from a young child living in Hiroshima during World War II to a 14-year-old hit man in the barrios of Medellín to a high school jock in an Australian beach town. Mr. Le not only writes with an authority and poise rare even among longtime authors, but he also demonstrates an intuitive, gut-level ability to convey the psychological conflicts people experience when they find their own hopes and ambitions slamming up against familial expectations or the brute facts of history. By far the most powerful, most fully realized story in this collection, 'Love and Honor' begins as a fairly conventional account of a young writer suffering from writer's block and trying to cope with an unwanted visit from his father, who has flown in from Australia to see him. . . . As this story unfolds, it becomes a meditation not just on fathers and sons, but also on the burdens of history and the sense of guilt and responsibility that survivors often bequeath to their children. . . . [Le's] sympathy for his characters and his ability to write with both lyricism and emotional urgency lend his portraits enormous visceral power. . . . In the two stories that bookend this collection, he conveys what it might be like to have the Vietnam War as an inescapable fact of daily life, infecting every relationship and warping the trajectory of one's life. In 'The Boat' he does so directly with devastating results; in 'Love and Honor' he does so elliptically, creating a haunting marvel of a story that says as much about familial dreams and burdens as it does about the wages of history." Michiko Kakutani,The New York Times "Not yet 30, [Nam Le] is already an extraordinarily accomplished and sophisticated writer. In [The Boat's] opening story, he plays with the elusive boundaries between truth and fiction . . . [The Boat] offers strong evidence that the most effective way to convey the universal human qualities Faulkner admired in literature is, paradoxically, through the individual and the particular. . . . The range of characters is unusual, but what is truly remarkable is that the language and tone of each [story] is perfectly suited to the characters and setting . . . The stories are so different from one another it is hard to believe all seven are the work of a single author. What they all have in common is that each one portrays its characters in a crisis that reveals resources of courage and resilience even he or she was not aware of. All but one of the stories concern what is arguably the deepest, most complex and most poignant of human relationships: the bond between parent and child. . . . The most moving and unforgettable is 'Halflead Bay' . . . Rarely has one read such a sensitive and empathetic treatment of adolescent angst, all the more remarkable because the story's main charac