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Dragonfish: A Novel Hardcover – August 3, 2015

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Vu Tran (Author)
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Vu Tran (Author)
3.6 out of 5 stars 93 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 304 pages
  • Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; F First Edition edition (August 3, 2015)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0393077802
  • ISBN-13: 978-0393077803
  • Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1.1 x 9.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (93 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #73,447 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsIt's Still A Mystery
By Em Perdue on August 2, 2015
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Excellent, vivid writing with beautiful metaphors and similes that stopped me long enough to ponder them amid the action of the novel. The escape from Vietnam to the refuge camp could have been taken from current events it was so fresh. This isn't my typical genre so I'm not one to judge what seemed like an inconclusive, enigmatic ending. Some things must remain a mystery. It was Scott Simon's interview with the author on NPR's Saturday Morning program that inspired my kindle purchase. I'm glad I read it.
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5.0 out of 5 starsI read this in the voice of Max Payne 3
By Amazon Customer on August 11, 2015
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
The noir genre is a tired beast: You got your ex-cop with a dark past who's trying to do the right thing, check; your femme fatale popping the crazy pills, check; a psychotic villain who frequently engages in somnophilia, check. That said, Dragonfish was very much a page-turner for me. Every description was vivid, from life in a refugee camp, to the 24/7 neon lights of Vegas, Vu Tran really masterfully crafted an environment of suppression, hopelessness, and one of lost love. Metaphors, similes, abound... You really get a feel of characters' emotions by what they observe in their environments.

Vu Tran really hit the ground running with this novel. Keep it up, bro.
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5.0 out of 5 starsDragonfish is a brilliant debut novel by Vu Tran
By Amazon Customer on August 3, 2015
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
Dragonfish is a brilliant debut novel by Vu Tran. He has a writing style that pulls you in where you want to read every word and not skim over anything. His characters are deep and complex and whether the character is good or bad, you feel like you know them and can understand where they are coming from. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and look forward to more from Vu Tran. Excellent book.
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3.0 out of 5 starsNeither fish nor fowl
By PracAdemic on September 4, 2015
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
This book is neither fish nor fowl. It has many of the elements of a noir novel - the jaded cop, the missing 'dame', the ganged up goons - but then has a first-person narration, by Suzy in the form of a diary, about the refugee and immigrant experience and her conflicted feelings about her daughter. The latter is vivid, but weirdly unmoving despite the losses and displacement that Suzy suffers, because she is so lacking in insight or empathy for herself or others. After spending many many pages with her you know exactly as much as about this emotionally volatile, impulsive woman as her ex-husband, Robert Ruen (an Oakland cop), who was left blindsided in his marriage and when she left him or her abandoned daughter, Mai. Vu Tran can write and I am sure he has many great and even important stories in him, but this was a misfire.
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4.0 out of 5 starsRecommended
By Rebecca Mugridge on September 30, 2015
Format: Hardcover
Oakland cop Robert has been blackmailed by his ex-wife's new husband Sonny to track her down. She's gone missing and as Robert begins his investigations he finds that she's also taken $100,000 from her husband's safe. Suzy emigrated from Vietnam when she was a young woman, enduring difficult circumstances on the boat leaving Vietnam as well as in the camp where the emigrants waited for someone in the U.S. or elsewhere to sponsor them. As Robert tries to find Suzy in the Las Vegas casinos and hotels that she frequented, he learns more about her past and the many secrets that she kept from his all these years.

Dragonfish alternates between first person accounts narrated by Robert and letters that Suzy wrote to her daughter Mai, abandoned with other family members not long after they settled in Los Angeles. As Suzy recounts her story to Mai through the letters, we learn about the death of her first husband, the violence they experienced in the camps, and her desire to be alone to start over again once they arrived in America. Present day events narrated by Robert are full of violence and anger, both Robert's anger over Sonny's abuse of Suzy, but Sonny's anger over Suzy's abandonment and theft of his money. Both Sonny and his son Junior are members of a Vietnamese underground crime world in Las Vegas where violence is common and expected.

However, parts of this book didn't ring true for me. All of Robert's actions are motivated by his unending love for Suzy, but nowhere does he explain what it was about her that was lovable. His memories about her are all based on her emotional ups and downs, her anger and violence. It's simply not convincing.Read more ›
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2.0 out of 5 starsI Shoulda Known Better
By Robert B. Lamm on September 1, 2015
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
I'm not a big fan of mysteries, but I do read them from time to time when they have some other appealing aspect. I was drawn to this book because of the reviews that said it depicted the Vietnamese refugee experience. It does that, but only in a very limited way and from a very limited perspective. At its heart, this book is really just a noir mystery with a little Vietnamese dressing on the side, but the latter wasn't enough to make it worthwhile for me. The characters are shallow stereotypes, including the narrator, who is a tough cop of few words and evidently even less emotion., and the plot is next to nonexistent. At the end, you know nothing and, at least in my case, you don't particularly care.
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4.0 out of 5 starsWhere is Suzy? or Hong?
By Ron K on March 29, 2016
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
There have been a few novels written by western writers that have described the culture clash problems when white guy marries Asian woman, in this case a Vietnamese woman. With this novel we find a Vietnamese author examining the white guy culture clash when married to a Vietnamese woman. That alone made we want to read the book.

Robert is an Oakland, California cop. A bachelor most of his life, he eventually married a Vietnamese woman who had resettled in the US in the aftermath of the post-Vietnam war US refugee program. She had been married before but that husband, in a way, had not survived the effects of reeducation. She, also never escaped her past. Seeking comfort in religion, she also seemed to communicate with ghosts of her past, such as her husband, although there are others. Robert and Suzy’s marriage did not survive. I got the impression that Robert never tried to learn Vietnamese, never asked Suzy about her past, and was just waiting for Suzy to assimilate. Very lazy of Robert.

After eight years of an increasingly dysfunctional relationship descending into violence, Suzy disappears. Lots of lonesome time for Robert until he hears that Suzy has resurfaced in Las Vegas with the Vietnamese name of Hong and a new husband named Sonny. Robert also hears that Sonny got violent with Suzy. Revenge, probably more accurately put as jealousy, leads Robert to Las Vegas where he attempts to beat Sonny in return. This is not as easy as originally planned since Robert is first beaten by Sonny’s son. This is the first confusing part. I am up to chapter four and I don’t really know the son’s name. He was first called Sonny, then Sonny Jr. (an improvement) and finally Johnny. He will keep the name Johnny to the end of the story.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsThis is a fabulous book. Graphic and human with ...

This is a fabulous book. Graphic and human with the Gordian knot of the Vietnam War slowly unwrapped and re-wrapped in the post war period. Read more

Published 2 days ago by Michael C. Beatty
2.0 out of 5 starsDragon Fish offers some good reading. But my hesitation in rating it...

Dragon Fish offers some good reading. But my hesitation in rating it higher is because it reads to me like a borderline parody. Read more

Published 4 days ago by CVP
2.0 out of 5 starsA disappointment

While the section of the novel that recounts Suzy's "escape" from Vietnam and her life in the refugee camp is both believable and interesting, the Las Vegas sections are not. Read more

Published 6 days ago by Ardner Cheshire
5.0 out of 5 starsNot a huge reader but I loved this book

Not a huge reader but I loved this book. Brilliantly written! I could not put it down! I highly recommend this novel. Looking forward to his next work of art!

Published 10 days ago by Robert
3.0 out of 5 starsAn excellent thriller and mystery

An excellent thriller and mystery. I love how there is a new twist to the story around every turn. Add Las Vegas to the mix and this is one story you will not soon forget.

Published 22 days ago by Michelle Carrell
4.0 out of 5 starsIt his is an intriguing story of Vietnamese boat people, their...

A good book to finish our understanding of what our overseas wars do to the survivors. Would love to see a sequel with the characters that survived

Published 26 days ago by Jan R.. Krupp
1.0 out of 5 starsThe writing is tiresome and banal

Just awful..The refugee angle holds limited interest but seems mostly beside the point..But what is the point? Read more

Published 1 month ago by BILL HARING
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat read. Very detailed in description of the scenes ...

Great read. Very detailed in description of the scenes to create a visual for the reader. Could not put the book down. Read more

Published 1 month ago by Mai Tran
3.0 out of 5 starsThree Stars

Good structure-weak character development

Published 1 month ago by WILLIAM ROSENTHAL, M.D.
4.0 out of 5 starsComplex, beautifully written, well-crafted, unusual story.

I loved this book. Beautifully written with very interesting, complex, unusual characters. I really appreciated that there were really no characters who were clearly "good"... Read more

Published 1 month ago by Stuart L.

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