The Boat - Nam Le

When I set up this blog I meant to keep this bit a lot more up to date than I have, but I haven't and now I'm stuck with the option of skipping the past bunch of books I've read or just doing a quick snap shot for obsessions sake. So obsession's sake it is.

This is a book of short stories by a Vietnamese author who is considered 'up and coming'. As someone quite partial to a collection of short stories I eyed this one off for a while hoping it would reach discount prices before I departed Australia. It didn't, so I forked out the cash and am very pleased to say I was not disappointed.

First point - if you only read the first story, then that's ok, because it's the best, and it's brilliant, and it makes me very very jealous. If you make it past that, be prepared to be taken into the lives of others that I was never quite sure Le was qualified to take us into. The remaining stories are all worth the time it takes to drift through them, but they never reach the density and emotion of the first one. 

However, as an Australian who grew up in the multicultural melting pot that is the post 'White Australia' policy (raise your glasses please) I felt like I was reading about people from Sydney, and the stories themselves give many perspectives on how it feels to challenge what identity is, and how many layers it takes to make one. Which is the best bit about the book for me.