The Boat

Camberwell Victoria: Hamish Hamilton Penguin Group (Australia), 2008. First Thus . Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. First Australian edition. 315 pages. The spine is cracked along the preliminaries, the tow pages with reviews of the book and again at the verso of the back end paper. This appears to be a publisher's fault and the binding remains solid. The paper is very lightly tanned, else a clean, unmarked copy. "The Boat will take you everywhere. In 1979, Nam Le's family left Vietnam for Australia, an experience that inspires the first and last stories in The Boat. In between, however, Le's imagination lays claim to the world. The Boat takes us from a tourist in Tehran to a teenage hit man in Colombia; from an aging New York artist to a boy coming of age in a small Victorian fishing town; from the city of Hiroshima just before the bomb is dropped to the haunting waste of the South China Sea in the wake of another war. Each story uncovers a raw human truth. Each story is absorbing and fully realised as a novel. Together, they make up a collection of astonishing diversity and achievement. 'Nam Le is extraordinary, a writer who will be heard. The Boat will be read for as long as people read books. Its vision and its power are timeless.' - Mary Gaitskill 'Wonderful stories that snarl and pant cross our crazed world... and extraordinary performance. Nam Le is a heartbreaker, not easily forgotten.' - Junot Diaz 'A fearless new Australian voice that accepts no geographical limits; these are stories of leaping power and the most breathtaking grace and intimacy.' - Helen Garner