Lisa Eckstein’s Reviews > The Refugees > Status Update

"Someone Else Besides You" spends a few days with a divorced man and his difficult father. This story's ending was much more satisfying than many in the collection.

The narrator of "Fatherland" has grown up in the shadow of a more impressive half-sister she's never met, who finally comes to visit.

In "The Americans", a man who dropped bombs on Vietnam during the war visits the country for the first time and can't understand why his daughter feels a connection to the place.

I really enjoyed "The Transplant", which follows the unexpected turns in the life of a hapless protagonist.

In "The Other Man", a refugee from the war in Vietnam is taken in by a gay couple in San Francisco. Interesting scenario and characters, but I wished for a bit more from the story.

The family in "The War Years" finds that even though they've left Vietnam behind and the war has ended, the conflict still continues for some in their San Jose community.

"Black-Eyed Women" is a sad, powerful story of a ghostwriter who encounters the ghost of her brother and has to remember the difficult circumstances of his death.