A novel that redefines American identity. A son's letter to his Vietnamese mother, who will never read it: The daughter of an American soldier and a Vietnamese farmer's daughter is illiterate, barely speaks English, and works in a nail salon. She is the product of a forgotten war. The son, a frail outsider, recounts the illness of his grandmother, the battered hands of his abusive mother, and his tragic first love for an American boy. Ocean Vuong writes with dreamlike clarity about a life where violence and tenderness collide.