Narrator

The narrator of the novel is an unnamed 28-year-old man. Living in New York City in the narrative present, the narrator writes his narrative as a letter to his mother. Through his writing, he attempts making sense of his past, reconstructing his memories and relationships, as a means to conveying some impossible truth to his mother.

After being born in Vietnam, the narrator and his family flee to the United States when he is just two years old. In the states, the family struggles to learn the culture and language, to create a life for themselves beyond the traumas they experienced during the war. The narrator watches his mother struggle to make money, working long hours at the nail salon. They barely have enough food and live in tight quarters in a Hartford apartment. He witnesses his mother and grandmother's struggles with flashbacks and psychotic episodes, unsure how...