Goodbye, Saigon

the long version

Little Saigon, Westminster, California, 1993. Two female refugees - one from the ravages of wartime Vietnam, one from a more personal sort of hell - join together to forge an independent future in the violent, volatile world of Little Saigon. Brash, fast-talking, self-promoting Anh, a diminutive Vietnamese beauty, supports her ever-extending family on tips from a coke-snorting, gambling lawyer. When he disappears, she finds in his place his secretary, Jana, a tough, self-sufficient Anglo who needs money as desperately as Anh does. Together they set up a bogus law practice in Little Saigon. Anh supplies the clients, Jana plays lawyer, and business thrives until the vicious Nep gang wants a piece of their action. As Anh teaches Jana the ways of Little Saigon, a free-for-all cartoon of capitalism imposed on rigid and archaic traditions, we relive Anh's days as a young woman struggling through the relentless horrors of war. And when a vet who knew Anh in Vietnam comes to lead her into a new world, she is forced to enlist Jana's aid to pay a blood debt to her past. Nina Vida has created a community of vivid, unforgettable characters and has brought to life a fascinating society governed by the archaic family structure of an agrarian society, transplanted to the hustle of Southern California - a mixture that results in violent gangs, blatant racism, and crazy capitalist dreams. Never has the experience of these new Americans been portrayed with such love, such authenticity, and such a tragicomic understanding of people forced to build a future in the country that obliterated their past. This is the new America as we've never seen it portrayed in fiction before.