[close] Paul Eggers's stories examine the moral arena created by the existence of refugees. Some are stories about literal refugees, those displaced in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, and about those who would help them. Others are about refugees in a metaphoric sense—people alternately bullied and bullying, exiled from sources of power, caught in moments when the familiar gives way.

"The author's ability to evoke milieu is outstanding - one can feel the heat, the presence of the vermin and reptiles, the oppressive rains; in the Tacoma stories, the sordid neighborhoods are alive and teeming. Characters are wonderfully rendered. What is especially striking is the author's capacity to present the intense psychological/emotional pressures under which his characters labor - usually in vain. Another virtue of the book is its topic of the boat people dramatized in four of the stories; these bring the reader into confrontation with an aspect of the Vietnam 'experience' that has received little attention and probes themes of moral anarchy and collapse."-Gordon Weaver

"Eggers is a talented and ambitious writer, and this is an excellent collection. Eggers is not daunted by different cultures. His ability to bring an exotic setting to life reminds me of Paul Theroux. Settings are as vividly renderend here as they are in the best work of Graham Greene. This is a writer who almost never chooses to use shorthand. Eggers's characters are as memorable as the places he writes about."-Steve Yarbrough [close]