Summary

The novel opens with a brief letter written by Hong Thi Pham, also known as Suzy. The letter is addressed to Suzy’s daughter, Mai, and it describes their first night at sea after emigrating out of Vietnam. Mai was five years old at the time. At the end of the letter, Suzy says that these letters for Mai are “necessary to explain what I later did. You are a woman now, and you will understand” (4). The novel then begins its first chapter in the apartment of Robert Ruen, an officer for the Oakland police department. He begins to notice things that are out of place in his apartment, and he believes that people have been breaking in and looking around. One evening, he returns home to find two Vietnamese men in his apartment. They say they are from Las Vegas and that their...