Fire Summer Quotes

“Born into the first Indochina war and conscripted into the second, her father longed for a time when he did not fear for his and others’ survival. With the war seemingly in a distant past, he lost himself in stories that illuminated what life should be. He imagined living as humans should. In the twilight of Philadelphia evenings when he took flight with these ideals, forgetting the heaviness of his body, the rock doves were his companions. In those moments when he believed freedom could be attained in living, he felt at peace.”
― Thuy Da Lam, Fire Summer

“Though he had not physically changed, Kai seemed to experience an increase in being. Lee was pleased with the child’s metamorphosis from a burned block of wood seemingly oblivious to the world to a sponge that absorbed all there was around him. From Lee, the boy learned a confluence of people’s languages in a contact zone. From the children, he imitated the calls of the mountain. From Cook Cu, he concocted bits and pieces of the jungle for sustenance. From the passersby, he accumulated histories of dispersal: the stateless seeking asylum, the lowlanders crossing the sea, the indigenous forced from the highlands.”
― Thuy Da Lam, Fire Summer

“Xuan steps on the crests of waves billowing like white clouds. The dim glow of his lit cigarette flickers like nocturnal insects with the movement of his hand. He comes toward her, calling her. He lights another cigarette, then another. He smokes his hundredth. Hundreds of fireflies flash like the steady glow of a lighthouse beam that steers her to a shore and a woman building sandcastles.”
― Thuy Da Lam, Fire Summer

“The kiss did not make her feel dizzy or weak like a heroine in a Harlequin Romance, nothing like those first kisses her classmates swooned over at lunchtime. She had kissed other lips since. She sought those who ran in full strides, who had not stumbled in war, who laughed at Charlie Brown. But she never forgot her first kiss from an American who had been in ’Nam.”
― Thuy Da Lam, Fire Summer

“In Little Saigon, where people consumed U.S. goods and participated in Vietnamese rituals and festivities, Phat and Maia, orphans at an early age, tended to the void of their parents’ absences in different ways. Phat further emptied himself in order to flow and become ungraspable, a defense in the martial arts ring and in life. Maia filled her void with stories. Phat strived to be mirror-like; she sought mirrors.”
― Thuy Da Lam, Fire Summer