Book Critic: Nam Le's "The Boat"

nik.mercer — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 08:23:20 -0800

Usually the stories are enough. But when Nam Le put together his debut short story collection, The Boat, he threw a little of himself into the mix.

In the collection’s first story, “Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice,” Le is the central character, a student on a writing fellowship who debates following the trend of “ethnic literature” and using his father and their Vietnamese background as the basis for a story. In revealing his personal history with identity and family, Le sets an intimate and genuine tone for the rest of the stories.