September 2004: The Gangster We Are All Looking For (Thúy)

Post date: Jan 06, 2010 7:52:35 PM

For September, we joined the incoming first-year class of Smith in reading The Gangster We Are All Looking For by Lê Thi Diem Thúy. Thirteen of us trickled in by 7:30pm to the lounge of Jordan's restaurant at the Claremont Hotel Thursday night the 23rd, including some old and new faces. We took the opportunity to go around the circle and introduce ourselves--name, year, and occupation. Turns out that our experiences (career or other activities and interests) shape our interpretation of what we read! Betsey, with years of working with refugees, focused on the experience of the immigrant, while others found it to be more simply the story of a girl or an almost-autobiography told in pieces. We were baffled by the title. We discussed the writing style, which, in its use of beautifully crafted descriptive vignettes, bordered on poetry, yet was also very effective prose. We all enjoyed the quality of the writing and the way the author was able to present the perspective of a small child as she saw the new world around her.

Why did Smith select this book as the required reading for this year's incoming class? The group was unable to conclude any obvious reason, other than perhaps that it is the story of a young woman with many different experiences in her life embarking upon something new and unknown--just as new students at Smith are.