![]() ![]() ![]() The heart of the narrative is Pham’s depiction of his five-month adventure in Vietnam, often not a pretty picture. The most riveting sections are Pham’s exceptional evocations of his father’s time in a postwar communist reeducation (read: concentration) camp and the family’s near miraculous escape by sea from their homeland. Make my pilgrimage.” In his first book, Pham details his solo cycling journeys, mixing in stories of his and his family’s life before and after leaving Vietnam. “I have to do something unethnic,” he says. Much to his parents’ displeasure, he set off on bicycle excursions through Mexico, Japan, and, finally, Vietnam. A few years ago, rebelling against family pressures to succeed and a patronizing, if not racist, work environment, Pham quit his job. ![]() Raised in California, he worked hard, went to UCLA, and landed a good engineering job. Pham (born Pham Xuan An) fled Vietnam with his family in 1977 at age ten. Now comes a stunning first: a family tale by a Vietnamese-American that centers on an eye-opening trip to his native land. So, too, has the multigenerational Vietnamese-refugee family saga. The veteran-penned “going back” book has become a subgenre of the American Vietnam War canon. A brilliantly written memoir in which a young Vietnamese-American uses a bicycle journey in his homeland as a vehicle to tell his eventful life story. ![]()
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