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A mesmerizing epistolary tale of a sensual queer love affair set against the backdrop of Las Vegas' gritty underbelly.
The Italy Letters is a slim, powerful shot of literary fantasia from one of America’s best-kept secrets. Long an underground favorite, visionary writer Vi Khi Nao weaves an unforgettable and highly distinctive story of a love affair suffused with longing, erotic passion, and heartbreak—all while painting a picture of the gritty underside of Las Vegas.
This beautiful and mesmerizing novel by a queer Vietnamese American writer is a brilliant and unclassifiable work of fiction that takes the form of a series of letters written by the unnamed narrator to her lover in Italy … part of a stream-of-consciousness narrative that is by turns poignant, bawdy, funny, and disturbing—and often beautifully poetic.
Along the way, the story touches on the immigrant experience, LGBTQIA identity, social class, writing, betrayal, sex, and homesickness. The result is an authentically distinctive piece of writing from a writer on the cusp of wide acclaim.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
August 13, 2024 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781685891312
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781685891312
- File size: 15418 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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August 5, 2024
Nao (Swimming with Dead Stars) delivers an incisive epistolary novel about a Vietnamese American writer’s economic hardship and queer desire. The unnamed narrator, who’s broke and desperate after losing her bid for a professorship, writes, but does not send, a series of letters to her poet friend in London. In them, she mixes quotidian details of her everyday life with rants on the pitfalls of academia and sorrowful descriptions of her mother’s severe pain from bronchitis and suicidal feelings. Only in these unsent letters does the narrator confess her lust for her friend, as she’s worried her feelings are unrequited and doesn’t want to damage her friend’s marriage. The narrator’s missives are full of complex issues lacking easy solutions: her inability to feel an emotional connection in romantic relationships due to being abused; her mother’s tendency to make the narrator feel guilty for her suffering; and her precarious living situation with a friend who lets her slide on rent in exchange for sex and household chores. In fluid stream of consciousness, the narrator conveys her external struggles and her inner passion. The result is a one-sided exchange that explodes with feeling. -
August 30, 2024
Nao's (War Is Not My Mother) latest is a story about queer desire and isolation, as told through unsent letters from a writer caring for her ailing mother to her married friend. The two primarily communicate through online correspondence, as well as handwritten letters, sharing their professional ups and downs. Although the unnamed narrator typically finds connection in their conversations, she also finds herself alternately lusting after her friend and unable to pursue relationships with anyone. Meanwhile, the narrator attempts to bring comfort to her suicidal mother as she herself deals with her own mental health and poverty. Nao's writing is beautiful and evocative, and the aching loneliness that the narrator feels is conveyed quite well. But the story is told in large chunks of text with little context to ground her experiences, which some readers may find confusing, and an unresolved narrative. VERDICT Fans of Nao will be drawn to this novel. It includes many beautifully written sentences, but the disorganized stream-of-consciousness style and lack of resolution for the narrator's feelings may be off-putting to some readers.--Jennifer Renken
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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