by Nam LeAnchor Canada
~ Review in Halifax Herald, January 2010
In voices as varied as the stories they inhabit, Nam Le gives us The Boat, an extraordinary debut collection of short stories which traverses the globe, moving from Japan to Colombia, New York to Iran to Iowa.
Meeting Elise tells the story of an aging artist who fell in love with his model, and whose “terminally passive-aggressive wife” left for Russia with their infant child. The last time he saw his daughter, she was “blanket-wrapped and pillow-sized and hot with fever on (his) apartment stoop.” She is now a famous cellist and he becomes obsessed, driven to find her before he dies. “Family is family.You only have one shot at it.”
In his title story, The Boat, we meet Mai, Quyen, Anh Phuoc and Truong, Quyen’s young son who attaches himself to Mai. We called them ‘the boat people’ and watched their desperation from the safety of our living rooms. Le gives them a voice and it is not to be ignored.
Imagination is, of course, the essence of fiction, and the ability to imagine onto the page, to pull the reader in, is what sets authors apart. It is hard to believe Le has not been to these countries, lived the life of an aging painter, hung with teenage hit men in Colombia, or survived the wild ocean on an overcrowded boat of dubious seaworthiness. His imagination soars and takes us with him. There is no respite.
Nam Le was born in Viet Nam and grew up in Australia. His short stories have won several awards, and The Boat won The Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Award and The Melbourne Prize for Literature. He is the editor of the Harvard Review.
