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5★
I was delighted to find this book of well-written short stories by Aussie author Nam Le, who arrived here by boat as a refugee from Vietnam when he was only one.
These eight stories are all quite different from each other and Le speaks in many voices from different countries, all believable: Vietnamese, Colombian, Japanese, Iranian, Australian.
I think my favourite is the young Aussie lad in the fishing family with the sick mum. Football, a girl, bullies, a jetty, a struggling dad and younger ...more
I was delighted to find this book of well-written short stories by Aussie author Nam Le, who arrived here by boat as a refugee from Vietnam when he was only one.
These eight stories are all quite different from each other and Le speaks in many voices from different countries, all believable: Vietnamese, Colombian, Japanese, Iranian, Australian.
I think my favourite is the young Aussie lad in the fishing family with the sick mum. Football, a girl, bullies, a jetty, a struggling dad and younger ...more
I don't often reread books but every now and again I will do so. It might be because I want to reread the story or it might be some other form of obligation. Over the last few days I reread The Boat by Nam Le because it was the October book for my book club.
I thought it might be fun to revisit my review of the short story collection that I wrote over three years ago and see what has changed and what has stayed the same.
To read further thoughts head to my review
http://www.theintrepidreader.com/ ...more
I loved the opening and closing stories and also enjoyed 'Halflead Bay' but struggled to connect or rustle up any interest in the other stories. Not sure whether that's due to my attention span at the moment, or fault of the author but one cannot deny that Le is an incredibly gifted writer. This book has been on my shelves for years; I still remember the day I sighed when I picked it up at Avid Reader in West End and thought, fuck I guess I have to. Most books I feel this way about (Franzen's Fr
...more
I am not a fan of short stories but someone had recommended this book to me a few years ago. Each story left me hanging for more. It felt like something was missing from each story. Nothing seemed to be resolved. Really did not enjoy it at all.
