Books by Vu Tran
Dragonfish: A Novel
by Vu Tran
A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year
"Note-perfect. Heartbreaking. Profound…[A] polished dagger of a novel that will cut out your heart." ―Charles Bock, New York Times best-selling author of Beautiful Children
Robert, an Oakland cop, still can’t let go of Suzy, the mysterious Vietnamese wife who left him. Now she’s disappeared from her new husband, Sonny, a violent smuggler who blackmails Robert into finding her. Searching for Suzy in the sleek and seamy gambling dens of Las Vegas, Robert finds himself also chasing the past that haunts her―one that extends back to Vietnam and a refugee camp in Malaysia, and forward to Suzy’s estranged daughter, a poker shark now taking the future into her own hands.
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No copies available.
Dragonfish: A Novel
by Vu Tran
A New York Times Notable Book of 2015
"Vu Tran's Dragonfish is that rare hybrid marvel―a literary thriller, a narrative of migration and loss that upends the conventions of any form." ―Dinaw Mengestu, author of All Our Names
Robert, an Oakland cop, still can't let go of Suzy, the enigmatic Vietnamese wife who left him two years ago. Now she's disappeared from her new husband, Sonny, a violent Vietnamese smuggler and gambler who's blackmailing Robert into finding her for him. As he pursues her through the sleek and seamy gambling dens of Las Vegas, shadowed by Sonny's sadistic son, "Junior," and assisted by unexpected and reluctant allies, Robert learns more about his ex-wife than he ever did during their marriage. He finds himself chasing the ghosts of her past, one that reaches back to a refugee camp in Malaysia after the fall of Saigon, as his investigation soon uncovers the existence of an elusive packet of her secret letters to someone she left behind long ago. Although Robert starts illuminating the dark corners of Suzy’s life, the legacy of her sins threatens to immolate them all.
Vu Tran has written a thrilling and cinematic work of sophisticated suspense and haunting lyricism, set in motion by characters who can neither trust each other nor trust themselves. This remarkable debut is a noir page-turner resonant with the lasting reverberations of lives lost and lives remade a generation ago.
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McSweeney's Issue 78 (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern): The Make Believers
by Dave Eggers, Vu Tran, Rita Bullwinkel, Thi Bui
In McSweeney's 78: The Make Believers (guest edited by Thi Bui and Vu Tran), nine writers of the Vietnamese diaspora write from the eclectic hodgepodge that is their shared imagination of what it means to be "Vietnamese". The work in this issue spans highbrow to lowbrow, proper to naughty, logical to absurd, and painful to funny. This issue will be published on April 30th 2025, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. Its contributors work across diasporic perspectives and multiple languages. In this completely singular, nothing-else-of-its-kind, anthology contributors write (and illustrate!) from a place of collective loss and joy.
Featuring:
Doan Bui
Thi Bui
H'Rina DeTroy
Anna Moï
Hoài Huong Nguyen
Vaan Nguyen
Isabelle Thuy Pelaud
Bao Phi
Paul Tran
Vu Tran
Ever changing, each issue of the quarterly is completely redesigned (there have been hardcovers and paperbacks, an issue with two spines, an issue with a magnetic binding, an issue that looked like a bundle of junk mail, and an issue that looked like a sweaty human head), but always brings you the very best in new literary fiction.
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$40.00