A daughter’s father

A little girl’s fierce love for her father flows through lê thi diem thúy’s The Gangster We Are All Looking For. This is the Ba who builds special back steps so she can win hide-and-seek, the gardener who browses library books to discover trees and plants, the husband who longs to transform the moon into a pool of water so his waitress-wife can soak her feet after her night shift, who finds her a hat when she shaves her head in defiance. He is also the Buddhist gangster rejected by his in-laws, the soldier caught in a war relived through drink, a father who searches the open ocean looking for his lost child-son.