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A surreal, dream-like account of an achingly sensual love affair from a queer Vietnamese American novelist and cult favorite This beautiful and mesmerizing novel by a queer Vietnamese American writer is a brilliant and unclassifiable work of fiction that takes the form of a series of letters written by the unnamed narrator to her lover in Italy … part of a stream-of-consciousness narrative that is by turns poignant, bawdy, funny, and disturbing – and often beautifully poetic.; The story touches, obliquely but powerfully, on the immigrant experience, LGBTQIA identity, social class in the academy, writing, betrayal, sex, and homesickness. The narrator is in the process of caring for her declining mother, who is both deteriorating in health but remains imperious – not perhaps an uncommon dynamic, and one that is sketched with great compassion, humor, and yes, exasperation. The result is an authentically distinctive piece of writing from an underrated American writer on the cusp.
About the author
Vi Khi Nao was born in Long Khánh, Vietnam, and immigrated to the United States at a young age. Her work includes poetry, fiction, film, and cross-genre collaboration, and has been featured in periodicals such as Conjunctions, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Chicago Review, Glimmer Train, the Bafller, and McSweeney’s, and in The Best American Nonrequired Reading anthology. A former Black Mountain Institute fellow, she lives in Iowa City.
