Birds of Paradise Lost

Praise for Book, Title Page, Copyright, Acknowledgments, Dedication

More Critical Acclaim for Birds of Paradise Lost Grandma is in the freezer, there’s Zoloft in the chicken curry, and a man is on fire in Washington D.C. The immigrant story will never be the same again now that it’s gone through Andrew Lam’s prose—razor-tongued, sophisticated, achingly aware of where it comes from but never imprisoned by its memory. Lam takes the traditional immigrant story and set it ablaze and then serenely rescues from its burning embers what had been there all along—the all-American story. —Sandip Roy, commentator, Morning Edition, National Public Radio These poignant, sometimes humorous, often heart-rending stories gift us with the voices and faces of the Vietnamese-American community: a community that has finally been able to express itself through the fiction of a new generation of writers such as Andrew Lam. Yet this is also fiction which in its universal and human truths pulls off the delicate trick of both including and transcending the ethnic genre and firmly situates Lam among the best writers of American—and world—literature. —Wayne Karlin, author of Wandering Souls: Journeys with the Dead and the Living in Viet Nam As a fellow Vietnamese American, I don’t read Andrew Lam’s stories; I experience them. There are very few writers who can achieve this for me; Andrew can. —Lac Su, author of I Love Yous Are for White People Andrew Lam is one of a handful of writers who are truly necessary to the emotional and intellectual health of American culture today. Whether exploring the contemporary political ironies of the streets, the fates of individual victims of war, or the indefinable tenderness between lovers, his stories show us truth we may have turned away from or never recognized. Lam’s stories go deep and stay with you a long time. —Frank Stewart, Editor, Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing After reading Birds of Paradise Lost, it feels as if one has been to the opera. This is a work drenched in color and music, sorrow and beauty. The intensity of emotion conveyed in these pages is stunning. A bravura performance. —Lori Marie Carlson, author of The Sunday Tertulia Loss, longing, the riotous, the incongruous: There is nothing predictable here. Lam revels in the unexpected and makes it his country. —Gish Jen, author of World and Town While Andrew Lam’s characters share a broader history, each story is an entire world that Lam animates fully with remarkably spare strokes. What these stories have in common is the intelligence behind them, which is at once fierce, compassionate , and wonderfully perverse. Each story pleases and surprises, and the collection as a whole resonates long after the reading is done. —Elise Blackwell, author of Hunger This page intentionally left blank. Birds of Paradise Lost stories by Andrew Lam Red Hen Press | Pasadena, CA Birds of Paradise Lost Copyright © 2013 by Andrew Lam All Rights Reserved No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner. Book design and layout by David Rose Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lam, Andrew. Birds of paradise lost : stories / by Andrew Lam.—1st ed. p. cm. ISBN 978-1-59709-268-5 (alk. paper) I. Title. PS3612.A54328B57 2013 813’.6—dc23 2012023849 The Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund, the City of Pasadena Cultural Affairs Division, and Sony Pictures Entertainment partially support Red Hen Press. This publication was supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. First Edition Published by Red Hen Press www.redhen.org Acknowledgments Thank you to the following publications where these works were first published: Publications Amerasia Journal, “Grandma’s Tales”; Arts and Letters, “Everything Must Go”; Asia Literary Review, “Close to the Bone”; Crab Orchard Review, “Show & Tell”; Glassworks Magazine, “Slingshot”; Manoa Journal, “Birds of Paradise Lost” as “Fire,” “Love Leather”; Michigan Quarterly Review, “Hunger”; New Sudden Fiction : Short-Short Stories and Beyond, “The Palmist”; Writing on the Edge Literary Journal, “Sister”; and Zyzzyva, “Slingshot,” “Yacht People.” Anthologies Bold Words: A Century of Asian American Writing, “Show & Tell”; Growing Up Poor, “Show & Tell”; Language Lessons: Stories for Teaching and Learning English, “Show & Tell”; Legacies: Fiction, Poetry, Drama...