The collection consists of eight stories.
Black-Eyed Woman.
Victor hires a ghost-writer to pen his memoir. Victor has a terrible case of survivor's remorse. Whilst she is writing Victor's story, the ghostwriter, who is never named, is living with her mother, and listens to her mother's ghost stories that are generally about people whom she has known in her life. The story that is most often re-told is that of the ghostwriter's older brother, who died a number of years ago. Whilst she is writing the ghost of her brother visits her briefly. When she tells her mother about the experience, her mother purchases new clothes for her son and asks her daughter to give them to him the next time that he visits her. Although she accedes to her mother's request, her brother refuses to take the clothes.
The woman and her brother were Vietnamese boat people. When the boat was taken by pirates, her brother saved her life by disguising her as a boy so that she wouldn't be kidnapped. However, the disguise was created in extreme haste and was not particularly convincing. One of the pirates grew suspicious of "her" and began to pay too much attention, and so the ghostwriter's brother stabbed the pirate, who killed him.
By coincidence, Victor also believes in ghosts, and this becomes a subject upon which they can compare notes. Victor believes ghosts have helped him overcome the losses in his life. Talking to him and writing his story inspires the woman to write her own ghost book.
The Other Man.
Parrish Coyne is sponsoring an eighteen year old Vietnamese refugee named Liem, and meets his plane at San Francisco airport. Coyne's lover Marcus Chan is also with him. Marcus and Parrish share a home in the Mission District of the city. Liem is unfamiliar with homosexuality and feels uncomfortable living in their home, so much so that he almost contacts the refugee service to request relocation. However, he comes to adjust to their lifestyle and becomes more comfortable. He spends most of his time studying. Some time after his arrival Parrish leaves for a business trip which gives Marcus and Liem time to get to know each other better. Liem falls in love with Marcus and tells him so but Marcus dislikes semantics. He believes that love is expressed by actions, not by words. The two begin a sexual relationship, just as Liem receives a letter from his father that urges him to "live a good life".
War Years.
The protagonist of the story is a boy who is not given a name. He spends most of his time going to a summer school for enrichment, but when he is not at school he works in the convenience store that his parents own in San Jose, California, embedded in the Vietnamese section of the city. When he is working in the store one day, one of their neighbors, Mrs Hoa, calls, and demands that the family make a contribution to a fund for fighting communism in Vietnam. The boy's mother refuses to pay up because she thinks the moment has passed and that it is too late to prevent communism taking hold. After an annoyed Mrs Hoa has left, the boy's father observes that if they are seen as pro-communist within the community their business may suffer.
There is an attempted robbery at the family's home, but the boy's mother has made significant security measures and so barely anything is taken. When they meet Mrs Hoa at church that weekend, his mother decides to follow her home to find out where she lives. She has decided that Mrs Hoa is an extortionist and refuses to contribute to the fund when Mrs Hoa comes to the store again. However, when her husband voices concerns over the damage to their reputation they decide to go to Mrs Hoa's house to offer to pay a smaller amount by way of a compromise and an olive branch. Inside the house they notice an army uniform, which Mrs Hoa tells them was worn by her husband who was killed in the war, along with a son. They feel terrible and offer two hundred dollars to the fund.
The Transplant.
Louis Vu asks Arthur Arellano, a Mexican American, to store counterfeit goods for him behind his house in Orange County, California. Arthur owes Louis; when he was dying from liver failure, Louis' father learned he was a match as a donor, and now that he has had a transplant he is healthy again. Usually the identity of organ donors is kept secret, but the hospital's computer system was hacked and Arthur receives mail that informs him of his donor's identity. Louis reluctantly takes Arthur's calls and eventually admits that the liver he has came from his father. The men become friendly acquaintances, and Arthur stays with Louis when he has argued with his wife, Norma, which is often. When he eventually returns home, Norma tells him that a man named Minh Vu has been calling him. When he calls Minh back Arthur learns that Minh is the son of Men Vu, not Louis. Louis is not related to his donor's family at all.
Arthur is furious and confronts Louis who admits that he took advantage of having the same last name as Arthur's liver donor. Arthur orders him to take his fake goods back but Louis retaliates by threatening to tell the authorities that most of the men Arthur employs in his landscaping company are working illegally. Arthur is stuck between a rock and a hard place and decides that the counterfeit products can stay where they are
I'd Love You To Want Me.
Mr and Mrs Khanh live in Westminster, California. Mr Khanh has just retired and is suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. He has begun to call her Yen, which puzzles her. Her son wants her to retire so that she can spend more time trying to stimulate her husband's memories, and she seriously considers doing so especially when her husband's condition worsens, he cannot remember how to do the most basic of things, and he continues to address her as Yen. She is so frustrated by this that she writes in his journal "Today I called my wife by the name of Yen. This mistake must not be repeated." Her husband keeps the journal as a memory aid and she is hoping that he will believe he penned this instruction in himself. However her plan backfires when he not only continues to call her Yen but begins to act violently towards her. She retires so that they can spend more time together as she realizes he needs more help than she had at first taken into account. As a librarian, she has a great love of books, and she and her husband begin to re-arrange their own collection of books together. She finds herself falling more in love with him than she has been in years and reads to him from a book called "I'd Love You To Want Me."
The Americans.
Carver and his wife Michiko are visiting their daughter Claire and her boyfriend Legaspi, in Quang Tri, Vietnam. Carver does not like Vietnam primarily because he was a pilot during the war. Claire believes that her soul is Vietnamese and this creates a great deal of conflict with her father. They disagree fundamentally about Vietnam and the way in which they have contributed to it.
Legaspi is a robotics specialist and takes Claire and her parents to see where he works. Carver observes that everything Legaspi is creating could be weaponized, which of course leads to a huge fight with his daughter. He storms out of the facility, but is caught in a fierce monsoon and becomes very sick with pneumonia as a result. He is taken to the hospital where he realizes that Claire has sat at his bedside continually as he is recovering.
Someone Else Besides You.
Thomas moves in with his father in Echo Park, central Los Angeles, after his mother passes away. His father's car is stolen and so Thomas offers to drive him around town, but one day has to drive his dad to visit with his mistress, Mimi, who has become his girlfriend now that his wife has died. Thomas' father believes that Thomas is an emotional coward because his wife divorced him due to his ambivalence about starting a family.
The men decide to visit Thomas' ex-wife, Sam, but are surprised themselves to find out that she is pregnant. She tells them about a trip she took to Vietnam in the summer; she encourages them to travel but Thomas' father tells her this kind of traveling would be bad for him. When Thomas asks who the father of her child is she declines to answer and also tells him never to come back. Thomas' father is furious and hurt for his son; as they leave he throws a rock through the windshield of her car. However, a few days later Sam visits them regarding the damage. Thomas offers to pay for the damage but does not give his father up as the one who threw the rock at the car. They get into a fight and then Thomas bends close to her belly Faand says "I could be the father" into it.
Fatherland.
Saigon, twenty-first century. Phuong Ly, her parents and two brothers live together in the city. They learn that Mr Ly's daughter from his first marriage is coming to visit them from her home in Chicago. Vivien spends a great deal of money whilst she is visiting them and explains her wealth by telling her father that she is a physician. Aside from learning this about Vivien, the entire family finds out much about each other during this family vacation.
Phuong learns that Vivien's mother was one of the people who escaped Vietnam by boat, and that her father was opposed to the escape. Vivien asks their father why he gave both of his daughters the name Phuong (she later changed her own name to Vivien) and he tells her that he knew she would never come back to Vietnam unless she had a good reason to do so. Perhaps meeting her sister with the same name would be that reason. He takes both daughters on a tour of the Cu Chi tunnels and gives a guided tour as if they are tourists. Vivien is alarmed that he seems to sympathize with the communists.
The night before Vivien is due to leave Vietnam she gives the family gifts that she has purchased for them. She tells Phuong that she does not feel much of a bond with their father. The next day Phuong tells Vivien that she aspires to be like her but Vivien admits that everything she has told the family about herself has been a lie. She is not really a doctor at all. She was a receptionist, and she just got fired. The money she has been flashing was the last of her severance pay. In her defense, she says, it was her mother who told their father that she was a successful physician. She is merely carrying on the facade. Phuong asks Vivien to sponsor her to go to America but Vivien tells her half sister that she is drowning in credit card debt and cannot afford to sponsor her. When Vivien has returned home to Chicago, she keeps in touch with her Vietnamese family, but Phuong burns her letters because she knows the truth about her and cannot bear to read her lies.
