Family In Six Tones

Author : Lan Cao
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1984878182
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Family in Six Tones written by Lan Cao and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dual first-person memoir by the acclaimed Vietnamese-American novelist and her thoroughly American teenage daughter In 1975, thirteen-year-old Lan Cao boarded an airplane in Saigon and got off in a world where she faced hosts she had not met before, a language she didn't speak, and food she didn't recognize, with the faint hope that she would be able to go home soon. Lan fought her way through confusion, and racism, to become a successful lawyer and novelist. Four decades later, she faced the biggest challenge in her life: raising her daughter Harlan--half Vietnamese by birth and 100 percent American teenager by inclination. In their lyrical joint memoir, told in alternating voices, mother and daughter cross ages and ethnicities to tackle the hardest questions about assimilation, aspiration, and family. Lan wrestles with her identities as not merely an immigrant but a refugee from an unpopular war. She has bigoted teachers who undermine her in the classroom and tormenting inner demons, but she does achieve--either despite or because of the work ethic and tight support of a traditional Vietnamese family struggling to get by in a small American town. Lan has ambitions, for herself, and for her daughter, but even as an adult feels tentative about her place in her adoptive country, and ventures through motherhood as if it is a foreign landscape. Reflecting and refracting her mother's narrative, Harlan fiercely describes the rites of passage of childhood and adolescence, filtered through the aftereffects of her family's history of war, tragedy, and migration. Harlan's struggle to make friends in high school challenges her mother to step back and let her daughter find her own way. Family in Six Tones speaks both to the unique struggles of refugees and to the universal tug-of-war between mothers and daughters. The journey of an immigrant--away from war and loss toward peace and a new life--and the journey of a mother raising a child to be secure and happy are both steep paths filled with detours and stumbling blocks. Through explosive fights and painful setbacks, mother and daughter search for a way to accept the past and face the future together.

Author : Lan Cao
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0140263616
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Monkey Bridge written by Lan Cao and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1998-06-01 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hailed by critics and writers as powerful, important fiction, Monkey Bridge charts the unmapped territory of the Vietnamese American experience in the aftermath of war. Like navigating a monkey bridge—a bridge, built of spindly bamboo, used by peasants for centuries—the narrative traverses perilously between worlds past and present, East and West, in telling two interlocking stories: one, the Vietnamese version of the classic immigrant experience in America, told by a young girl; and the second, a dark tale of betrayal, political intrigue, family secrets, and revenge—her mother's tale. The haunting and beautiful terrain of Monkey Bridge is the "luminous motion," as it is called in Vietnamese myth and legend, between generations, encompassing Vietnamese lore, history, and dreams of the past as well as of the future. "With incredible lightness, balance and elegance," writes Isabel Allende, "Lan Cao crosses over an abyss of pain, loss, separation and exile, connecting on one level the opposite realities of Vietnam and North America, and on a deeper level the realities of the material world and the world of the spirits." • Quality Paperback Book Club Selection and New Voices Award nominee • A Kiriyama Pacific Rim Award Book Prize nominee

Author : Lan Cao
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0698147499
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.92/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Lotus and the Storm written by Lan Cao and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-08-14 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lyrical novel of love and betrayal in the aftermath of the fall of Saigon—from the author of Monkey Bridge A singular work of witness, inspiration, and courage, The Lotus and the Storm marks the welcome return of Lan Cao’s pitch-perfect voice, telling the story only she can tell. Four decades after the war, Vietnam’s flavors of clove and cinnamon have been re-created by a close-knit refugee community in a Virginia suburb. But the lives of Minh and Mai, father and daughter, are haunted by ghosts, secrets, and the loss of their country. During the disastrous last days in Saigon, in a whirl of military signals and helicopter evacuations, Mai never had a chance to say goodbye to so many people who meant so much to her. What happened to them? How will Mai cope with the trauma of war—and will the thay phap, a Vietnamese spirit exorcist, be able to heal her?

Author : Lauren Grodstein
Publisher : Algonquin Books
ISBN 13 : 1565129679
Total Pages : 315 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book A Friend of the Family written by Lauren Grodstein and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2009-11-01 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After his best friend's daughter, Laura, sets her sights on his son, Alec, Pete Dizinoff sees his plans for a perfect son not just unraveling but being destroyed completely and sets out to derail the romance.

Author : Stewart Foster
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1471191257
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Perfect Parent Project written by Stewart Foster and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-01-21 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the award-winning author of THE BUBBLE BOY comes a heart-warming and unforgettable story? that follows one boy’s search for the perfect family, with surprising and unexpected results. Perfect for fans of Onjali Q. Rauf and Lisa Thompson. 'Friendship, laughter, suspense and more!' - Ross Welford, author of TIME TRAVELLING WITH A HAMSTER and THE 1000-YEAR-OLD BOY THINGS MY PERFECT PARENTS MUST HAVE: 1. A mega mansion like the ones footballers live in 2. A garage wall with a basketball hoop 3. No gerbils 4. Holidays to Disneyland All Sam wants is a family of his own, a home instead of a ‘house’ and parents he knows will still be there when he wakes up. Because Sam has been in and out of foster care his whole life and he can’t imagine ever feeling like he truly belongs. Then his best friend Leah suggests that rather than wait for a family to come to him, he should go out and find one. So begins The Perfect Parent Project ... But Sam may just discover that family has a funny way of finding you.

Author : Brandi Carlile
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 0593237242
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.43/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Broken Horses written by Brandi Carlile and published by Crown. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The critically acclaimed singer-songwriter, producer, and six-time Grammy winner opens up about faith, sexuality, parenthood, and a life shaped by music in “one of the great memoirs of our time” (Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed). NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND AUTOSTRADDLE • “The best-written, most engaging rock autobiography since her childhood hero, Elton John, published Me.”—Variety Brandi Carlile was born into a musically gifted, impoverished family on the outskirts of Seattle and grew up in a constant state of change, moving from house to house, trailer to trailer, fourteen times in as many years. Though imperfect in every way, her dysfunctional childhood was as beautiful as it was strange, and as nurturing as it was difficult. At the age of five, Brandi contracted bacterial meningitis, which almost took her life, leaving an indelible mark on her formative years and altering her journey into young adulthood. As an openly gay teenager, Brandi grappled with the tension between her sexuality and her faith when her pastor publicly refused to baptize her on the day of the ceremony. Shockingly, her small town rallied around Brandi in support and set her on a path to salvation where the rest of the misfits and rejects find it: through twisted, joyful, weird, and wonderful music. In Broken Horses, Brandi Carlile takes readers through the events of her life that shaped her very raw art—from her start at a local singing competition where she performed Elton John’s “Honky Cat” in a bedazzled white polyester suit, to her first break opening for Dave Matthews Band, to many sleepless tours over fifteen years and six studio albums, all while raising two children with her wife, Catherine Shepherd. This hard-won success led her to collaborations with personal heroes like Elton John, Dolly Parton, Mavis Staples, Pearl Jam, Tanya Tucker, and Joni Mitchell, as well as her peers in the supergroup The Highwomen, and ultimately to the Grammy stage, where she converted millions of viewers into instant fans. Evocative and piercingly honest, Broken Horses is at once an examination of faith through the eyes of a person rejected by the church’s basic tenets and a meditation on the moments and lyrics that have shaped the life of a creative mind, a brilliant artist, and a genuine empath on a mission to give back.

Author : Jane Green
Publisher : St. Martin's Press
ISBN 13 : 1250025958
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Family Pictures written by Jane Green and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2013-03-19 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Who can you trust if not the ones you love? That is the question at the heart of Family Pictures, an emotional, page-turning story about what it means to be a family from New York Times bestselling author, Jane Green "Green's novels consistently deliver believable, accessible, heartfelt, often heartwarming stories about real people, problems, and feelings."-Redbook Sylvie and Maggie are two women living on opposite coasts with children about to leave the nest for school. Both are in their forties with husbands who travel more than either would like. The looming emptiness of their respective homes has left them feeling anxious and lonely, needing their husbands to be home now more than ever. It isn't until Eve, Sylvie's daughter, happens to befriend Maggie's daughter that the similarities between these two women become shockingly real. A huge secret has remained well hidden for years until now-and their lives will be blown apart as dark truths from the past come to the surface. Can these two women learn to forgive, for the sake of their children...and for themselves? "This gripping story is ultimately one of redemption."-Library Journal

Author : Kim Thúy
Publisher : Random House Canada
ISBN 13 : 0307359727
Total Pages : 128 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Ru written by Kim Thúy and published by Random House Canada. This book was released on 2012-01-17 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A runaway bestseller in Quebec, with foreign rights sold to 15 countries around the world, Kim Thúy's Governor General's Literary Award-winning Ru is a lullaby for Vietnam and a love letter to a new homeland. Ru. In Vietnamese it means lullaby; in French it is a small stream, but also signifies a flow - of tears, blood, money. Kim Thúy's Ru is literature at its most crystalline: the flow of a life on the tides of unrest and on to more peaceful waters. In vignettes of exquisite clarity, sharp observation and sly wit, we are carried along on an unforgettable journey from a palatial residence in Saigon to a crowded and muddy Malaysian refugee camp, and onward to a new life in Quebec. There, the young girl feels the embrace of a new community, and revels in the chance to be part of the American Dream. As an adult, the waters become rough again: now a mother of two sons, she must learn to shape her love around the younger boy's autism. Moving seamlessly from past to present, from history to memory and back again, Ru is a book that celebrates life in all its wonder: its moments of beauty and sensuality, brutality and sorrow, comfort and comedy.

Author : Susanna Fogel
Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
ISBN 13 : 1627797920
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.24/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Nuclear Family written by Susanna Fogel and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2017-07-18 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From filmmaker and New Yorker contributor Susanna Fogel comes a comedic novel about a fractured family of New England Jews and their discontents, over the course of three decades. Told entirely in letters to a heroine we never meet, we get to know the Fellers through their check-ins with Julie: their thank-you notes, letters of condolence, family gossip, and good old-fashioned familial passive-aggression. Together, their missives – some sardonic, others absurd, others heartbreaking – weave a tapestry of a very modern family trying (and often failing) to show one another they care. The titular “Nuclear Family” includes, among many others: A narcissistic former-child-prodigy father who has taken up haiku writing in his old age and his new wife, a traditional Chinese woman whose attempts to help her stepdaughter find a man include FedExing her silk gowns from Filene’s Basement. Their six-year-old son, Stuart, whose favorite condiment is truffle oil and who wears suits to bed. Julie’s mother, a psychologist who never remarried but may be in love with her arrogant Rabbi and overshares about everything, including the threesome she had with Dutch grad students in 1972.

Author : Thi Diem Thuy Le
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0307792250
Total Pages : 178 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Gangster We Are All Looking For written by Thi Diem Thuy Le and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2011-04-13 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The highly acclaimed novel that reveals the life of a Vietnamese family in America through the knowing eyes of a child finding her place and voice in a new country. “A brilliant evocation of human sorrow and desire.... Heartbreaking and exhilarating.” —The New York Times Book Review In 1978 six refugees—a girl, her father, and four “uncles”—are pulled from the sea to begin a new life in San Diego. In the child’s imagination, the world is transmuted into an unearthly realm: she sees everything intensely, hears the distress calls of inanimate objects, and waits for her mother to join her. But life loses none of its strangeness when the family is reunited. As the girl grows, her matter-of-fact innocence eddies increasingly around opaque and ghostly traumas: the cataclysm that engulfed her homeland, the memory of a brother who drowned and, most inescapable, her father’s hopeless rage.