The Gangster We Are All Looking For, le thi diem thuy
The Gangster We Are All Looking For, le thi diem thuy
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The Gangster We Are All Looking For

Author: lê thi diem thúy

Narrator: Quyen Ngo

Unabridged: 4 hr 28 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/25/2022

Synopsis

A momentous literary debut: the life of a Vietnamese family in America luminously observed through the knowing eyes of a child.In 1978 six refugees—a girl, her father, and four “uncles”—are pulled from the sea to begin a new life in San Diego. In the child’s imagination, the world of itchy dresses and run-down apartments is transmuted into an unearthly realm: she sees everything intensely, hears the distress calls of inanimate objects and waits for her mother to join her.But life loses none of its strangeness when the family is reunited. As the girl grows, her matter-of-fact innocence eddies increasingly around opaque and ghostly traumas: the cataclysm that engulfed her homeland, the memory of a brother who drowned and, most inescapable, her father’s hopeless rage for a father’s order.In The Gangster We Are All Looking For, lê thi diem thúy has illuminated a world of great beauty and enormous sorrows. Here is an authentically original story of finding one’s place and voice in America.

About lê thi diem thúy

lê thi diem thúy is a Vietnamese-American artist whose work explores the role of the body as the site of memory. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and was named a Ford Fellow in Literature by United States Artists.

About Quyen Ngo

Quyen Ngo has previously worked as an on-air radio host, a DJ, and a reporter. After her time in commercial radio, she founded a podcast focused on telling stories from and about Vietnam. She works with reporters in both story development and tracking/voice in Los Angeles.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Brendan on November 01, 2016

As novels go, The Gangster We Are All Looking For -- Le Thi Diem Thuy's beautifully told account of a Vietnamese immigrant family -- is soaking wet. The sea is a constant, foreboding presence. Bodies are washing ashore on the first page and they are washing ashore on the last page. A man tells his be......more

Goodreads review by Laubythesea on November 03, 2022

4,5 ⭐️ “Vietnam es una fotografía en blanco y negro de mis abuelos sentados en sillas de bambú en el patio de su casa. […] Cuando pienso en aquel retrato de mis abuelos en sus últimos años, siempre me imagino un comienzo. De qué, no lo sé, pero siempre un comienzo”.   Luchar, huir, emigrar, empezar de......more

Goodreads review by Alan on April 01, 2009

poetic novel about Vietnamese immigrants to USA (California). Told from the p.o.v. of a young girl I enjoyed her descriptions of the weird place she's ended up in, and the behaviour of those around her (particularly teenage boys). Slim, almost plotless (although there is the story of her family's di......more

Goodreads review by Harrison on April 06, 2025

5⭐️ Lê Thi Diem Thúy 🤝🏼 Ocean Vuong This was so good! Poetic, emotional, harrowing; deeply, deeply personal and so important. I read some other reviews on this book, and I'm sure this work means a lot more to me - a Vietnamese-American descendant from immigrants - than it might for others. "The Gangst......more

Goodreads review by kel on January 22, 2025

i like how this book was about a Viet family that immigrated to San Diego, the author’s memories in each area she’s lived in really explain how linda vista and normal heights have a rich SE Asian immigrant history. realized i should talk to my family more about their lives in VN, experiences immigra......more

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