Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora

by Andrew Lam

Book Overview

In his long-overdue first collection of essays, noted journalist and NPR commentator Andrew Lam explores his lifelong struggle for identity as a Viet Kieu, or a Vietnamese national living abroad. At age eleven, Lam, the son of a South Vietnamese general, came to California on the eve of the fall of Saigon to communist forces. He traded his Vietnamese name for a more American one and immersed himself in the allure of the American dream: something not...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1597140201
• ISBN13: 9781597140201
• Release Date: July 2012
• Publisher: Heyday Books
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A Look at Life through The Eyes of a Vietnamese-American

Andrew Lam writes with such great passion and sensitivity that one becomes totally absorbed in his essays that are in his award winning book "Perfume Dreams". Truly a gifted effort that delivers a literary image of what it feels like to be a Vietnamese-American immigrant. His essays are like a coming of age story with so much more depth than most you read today. This book is amazing and inspiring--it will leave you in an emotional state long after you put the book down. The author writes about his culture and his struggles for identity. He has roots in two countries not only physically but also spiritually and emotionally as well. His observations, along with his reactions, thoughts and his musings about life and other people are both insightful and entertaining; his essays are important chronicles. The book can be read in an afternoon but it may take a lifetime to fully appreciate what the author has lived and written about. The book is worthy of your time to its read. I give this book my fullest personal recommendation. This book is a FIVE STAR BOOK!

A telling recounting of one person's Diaspora

The telling of this most personal journey avoids any and all hyperbole or belittling. Boldly Andrew Lam presents the opportunities found by the exile who chooses to leave his homeland as well as the demanding adjustments he must undergo if he is to succeed in his adopted country. Back in Vietnam he is viewed as one who is exceptional, a person who has achieved the highest level of sucess. Those opportunites, he finds, do not exist in fact or spirit in his native land.

Andrew is a gifted writer and a gate keeper / historian for Vietnamese Americans

Perfume Dreams is a must read book for all Vietnamese Americans. Andrew is a gifted writer, a gate keeper / history teller for Vietnamese American who are living in America. He has never lost his touch with his root. The Perfum Dreams touches all sides of experiences the Vietnamese refugees and immigrants. The "haves and not haves, the fortunate and unfortunate" lives of Vietnamese-Americans. I am looking forward for more of his future books. We should all feel proud to have someone like Andrew to keep us in touch with ourselves and remind us of the challenges in living in America.

Important, poignant essays

Andrew Lam has been writing about the Vietnamese diaspora longer than anyone I know. Since the early 1990s his works have appeared in national publications. "Perfume Dreams" is the amalgamation of his perspectives, ones that many of us former refugees can relate in our own lives. I had the pleasure of taking part in book events in NYC and LA with Andrew. In a way we've come full circle since our last elementary school day in Saigon when a defecting South Vietnamese jet bombed the Presidential Palace a few hundred meters across the street. Pick up this must-have book to better understand the Vietnamese identity in America.

STRIKINGLY HONEST AND TRUE

As I read this collection of essays, I almost felt as if it were my own memoir. Lam's feelings of growing up in two different cultures struck a cord in me and made me realize that someone else out there felt the same way I did growing up in America. This is an important piece of literature because it truly captures the sentiment of the Vietnamese-American torn between two cultures, betweeen the contemporary and the traditional, between two separate generations, between war and peace. For anyone who grew up feeling not really accepted by either your heritage culture or the current one, this is the book for you. Lam truly captures the Vietnamese-American experience and I highly recommend this book.