Customer Reviews

We Should Never Meet: Stories

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
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Aimee Phan in 'We Should Never Meet' masterfully weaves different chronological moments in time to create a complex insider perspective on what it was like to be a player in the Vietnam-America story. The tangible, earthy images of Vietnam, bare feet in warm soil, conical hats beating off scorching heat, blend with the identity confusion experienced by Vietnamese transported to America after the Vietnam War. Violence and anger and betrayal are presented blatently, yet in such a way as to inspire compassion and understanding for these characters, caught in a bigger story over which they have very little control. At its heart, this brilliant piece of writing is about what it is to be human, the strange tension in each of us between love and hate, anger and trust, rejection and acceptance, identity and confusion.

Even though the subtitle of this book indicates that these are a series of discrete short stories they are all interlinked by the theme of separation, loss, and coming together set against the backdrop of Operation Babylift. Although the specifics of the situation would seem to indicate that these stories would only be of interest to Asian Americanists, I think that Phan really hits upon universal human situations and emotions.
It's incredible to think that this Aimee Phan's first published book length work because it is very polished.
If you are interested in this very weird political maneuver (ok, we'll bomb your country to bits, but we'll also help out the orphans), I would also suggest seeing the documentary, "Daughter from Danang."

Great for anyone interested in the relatively unknown story of Vietnamese-Americans, post-war era. Also for lovers of character studies, the human condition, the general plight of life as presented through the angle of immigrants in a politically-charged atmosphere. The short story format enables smooth and easy reading, without being simplistic in subject or prose. Yet the author maintains a common and fluid thread between the varied stories.

This book blew me away. It was one of those books I was planning to just pick up and read a bit of each weekend but ended up scrapping my weekend plans to finish on the second day. Excellent read for anyone interested in exploring the complexities of identity or for people who just like to get wrapped up in intriguing stories.

I am big fan of short stories and this collection is absolutely superb and truly unique. Each story is thought provoking and leaves you wanting to know more about the particular character involved. I can only hope that Ms. Phan writes a sequel to the book so that I can find out what happened to each of these characters.

Aimee Phan's multi-dimensional characters really tell the stories of Operation Babylift orphans / adoptees / Viet kieu without flinching. She doesn't offer easy resolutions or romanticized storylines, but these people are REAL in all their complexity.

Inspired by the fall of Saigon and Operation Babylift in 1975, Phan's eight stories form an intricate tapestry, tracking Kim, an orphan, and three others, Vinh, a gang leader, Mai, another orphan who has long known Kim in foster care and Huan, who will return for closure to the Vietnam of his birth. This is human drama that begs to be told, two countries bound inextricably by war, the refugees of Operation Babylift desperately carving out new lives in their adopted country. In the first story, "Miss Lien", a child gives birth to a child, in the agony of delivery recalling her youth, the seasons of careless play, although nothing is easy on a farm with many mouths to feed. For a long time, the fighting seems far removed from the countryside, the guns and bombs a distant thunder, the children not yet afraid. Then the war moves closer, each family digging a bunker to shelter from the artillery lighting up the night sky. Eventually the farm is destroyed, the animals slaughtered. When Lien leaves home with her baby to work in the city, she plans to return, unaware that her country is plunging toward its terrible destiny, where motherless babies will be left to their fate.

The title story, "We Shall Never Meet", introduces Kim, one of the Operation Babylift orphans, who has already learned that each foster home brings a new set of problems, expectations and demands. Emancipated, Kim lives with a gang leader, Vinh, and recently befriended by a shop owner she once tried to rob. Trust does not come easily to the American-raised Kim, but she is drawn to this woman, who speaks in her native tongue. Constantly disappointed, raised in a world of want, Kim gives back in kind when the woman refuses an unreasonable request, setting in motion a terrible revenge. In "Visitors", Phan contrasts street life with hardworking residents of Little Saigon in Orange County, who pass their days in hopeful vigilance, nostalgia for the home country and the street-wise ways of those who prey on their own. Each of the stories fills in another part of the picture, the scant memories of the homeland fused with the harsh reality of life in America.

Moving back and forth from the fall of Saigon in 1975 and the desperate social dissolution that followed the troop withdrawal from the bloody Vietnam war to the crowded streets of Little Saigon two decades later, the author writes the legacy of a generation born of war, rescued and brought to a new country, there to be shuffled between foster homes, recreating the only environment they have known, a hardscrabble mixture of gang violence and quick-witted alliances. The majority of them ghettoized outcasts, a small society riddled with economic inequality and discontent, these characters personify their distress. Phan speaks eloquently for those who do not know they have a voice, marginalized by race and circumstance in a land of plenty. This writer has much to offer, her intimate knowledge a reservoir of hope, an untapped source of human drama. Luan Gaines/ 2005.

We Should Never Meet is one of the best short story collections that I've read in years. The stories, each with a unique perspective, are woven together by a powerful common thread of history. I was both entertained by Aimee Phan's beautiful writing and educated by her meticulous research.

The final story is a virtuoso example of how to weave together loose ends in an unexpected, deeply satisfying way.

Operation Babylift is one of the first historic events I remember living through - the subject is endlessly compelling and the author does it the honor of considering it from a variety of angles and perspectives.

This eloquent, unflinching & masterfully written book frequently brought me to tears. I recommended it often to our customers at Powells on Hawthorne.