By Audrey Fong
At the last Viet Book Fest, authors Lan Cao, Andrew Lam, and Viet Thanh Nguyen discussed Vietnamese American literature in the fifty years after the Fall of Saigon, the ethical dilemmas which come with being a writer, and how they each approach storytelling. What stood out about the panel was how funny all three of them were, even when covering what many would assume is a serious topic.
Lam was by far the most outwardly funny, cracking jokes about his family’s reaction to him being a writer and expressing jealousy over Cao’s parents not pressuring her to become a doctor. It felt like he had a witty response around each corner. When I interviewed him last spring for Red Hen Press’ podcast, Red Hen Radio, he was just as funny.
Consequently, I was surprised upon reading his short story collection, Stories from the Edge of the Sea, that his short stories aren’t as funny as Lam is in real life. Entering the collection, I expected something along the lines of Anthony Veasna So’s Afterparties or Ghassan Zeineddine’s Dearborn in the way that they use satire and bawdy humor to work through intergenerational trauma and the legacies of war. However, while Lam’s stories do include funny moments, the overall tone of the collection was one tinted with nostalgia. Oftentimes, the stories suggest that the characters do not reach an epiphany; rather, they carry on, unsettled, nostalgic for a lost world, or misunderstood. In this way, Stories from the Edge of the Sea is similar to many other Red Hen Press books, such as Pete Hsu’s If I Were the Ocean, I’d Carry You Home, in that there are no easy endings, reflecting the realities of life.
In Stories from the Edge of the Sea, Lam is bold and unafraid. His stories range in tone, point of view, and form. In one story, he writes from the point of view of a young woman whose beauty causes more problems than it solves (“She in a Dance of Frenzy”); in another, he writes from the point of view of a man whose visit to his ex-lover and his wife is troubled upon meeting their child (“Bleak Houses”). The most interesting aspect of this collection, however, is the way that Lam experiments with form. Of course, some stories follow conventional short story forms, but others, like “A Good Broth Takes Its Time,” intersperse instructions on how to make pho between stories of pho from around the world. In other stories, Lam structures the story around photo uploads partnered with captions and diary entries denoted by dates, weaving fiction into other modes of documentation.
Out of the fourteen stories in the collection, I was most struck by “Swimming from the Mekong Delta.” This is not necessarily because it was the most impressive in terms of prose or structure, but because of what Lam explores and criticizes in it. The story is told from the perspective of a man who’s discovered standup comedy. While some of the pacing changes from narrative to standup comedy and rapping didn’t work for me, the way Lam uses the genre of standup comedy to critique aspects of the Vietnamese American community felt new and unexpected compared to much of the Vietnamese American literature I’ve read. At one point, the narrator criticizes the irony of the community’s investment in plastic surgery, saying, “All this, for what? Yup, to finally look pretty in America. High cheekbones, slim waist, and tan. Funny how we were so skinny and sunburned on that boat out at sea, but in America, we spend a fortune just to look that way again.” Through the narrator, Lam is able to question the community’s investment in “botox. Liposuction. Double eyelids. Aquiline nose” by comparing the achieved results with a period of difficulty for them. While on plastic surgery I tend to lean towards not judging people for what they choose to do (unless they’re a public figure who denies they’ve had work done only to market lip kits or skinny teas later on), I thought Lam’s decision to dive into the irony of these procedures was bold and brought up new dimensions surrounding white beauty standards and their effects on Asian Americans.
Lam continues this critique with a segue from Orange County Vietnamese weddings back to plastic surgery by applying the word “lazy” to both the way money has made the community lazy to the way food is served on Lazy Susans at these weddings. On new money and laziness, his critique of the community is loud: “Thing is, with all the new money, people are still so damn lazy. They all be going to the same fucking cosmetic surgeon and same handful of dress makers for traditional dresses. So they all have the same nose, same double eyelids, and the same fucking traditional dress with different types of flowers sewn on them.” Finally, it builds up to a moment of absurdity that perhaps speaks to a kernel of truth when the comedian says that after a few shots and spinning the Lazy Susan a few too many times, the men are unable to discern whose wife is whose: “Know what I mean? Guys start tripping. Oh god, which one is my wife, man, and which one’s yours?”
While this scenario is funny, the critique of plastic surgery and conformity felt a bit harsh to me (although I may not be a good judge given that I am not a part of the Orange County Vietnamese community). However, as an Asian American who witnesses Asian celebrities conforming to the same nose jobs, chin slimming surgeries, and skin whitening standards, I thought the criticism was certainly thought provoking. It felt timely in an age of algorithms pushing beauty procedures and products. It’s also a bold move, on behalf of Lam, to stray away from accepted Vietnamese American narratives and to call out the community. Standup comedy allows him the plausible deniability of it being just a joke, rather than a criticism he actually believes.
While Stories from the Edge of the Sea is not my favorite short story collection ever, it is thought provoking and Lam’s bold approach to form is inspiring. To me, this is a collection that is both concerned with nostalgia fifty years onwards and with contemporary issues facing the community. It is a collection that attempts to understand and imagine the Vietnamese diaspora across geographies, genders, socioeconomic lines, and sexualities in a way that is impressive for just over 200 pages. I recommend reading the stories one by one over a long period of time instead of jumping into the collection all at once. This approach allows more time for reflection between stories and allows for more appreciation of the changes in tone, form, and content that occur between stories.
Audrey Fong is your stereotypical Southern Californian. She loves the beach, drinks more boba than the doctor recommends, and has an Insta-famous dog. She is the co-founder and co-editor of Soapberry Review.