Like Viet Thanh Nguyen’s acclaimed
The Sympathizer
,
VietnamEazy
captures with startling honesty and detail the dizzying dislocation that so many Vietnamese arrivals in the United States have experienced and, like Amy Tan’s
The Joy Luck Club
, explores the age-old mysteries of the mother-daughter relationship. It tells the story of Kieu, a Vietnamese-American woman, and her quest for success on a TV cooking show, introducing the intoxicating allure of Vietnamese food to a general audience, interwoven with the haunting, sorrowful tale of her family and upbringing. This is a universal tale of redemption that mothers and daughters can read together and discuss, preferably over a steaming bowl of pho.