A good "travel with a stranger who becomes a friend" experience offering a bumpy but authentic eye witness experience of Vietnam. A personable addition to anyone's immigrant experience collection recounting the pleasures and pains of going home again and bearing the burdens, and joys, of home with you through life in a new place.

A fantastic read of a first generation Vietnamese American discovering his roots back to Vietnam. Pham writes his protagonist from a first person point of view which really helps to encapsulate the inner turmoil he goes through on his journey of self-discovery.

On a whole, it half reads like a self-reflective journal of the main character, and the other half, of his bike ride through various countries. The pace is well maintained, but I would have liked to see a faster pace in some sections - it reads pretty mellow throughout. Although I guess this could just be the personality of the protagonist.

Otherwise, it was both educational (about the history of Vietnam) and gave insights into the Vietnamese society post-war. Additionally, Pham depicts the stark difference between those who immigrated versus those who stayed.

Andrew Pham, who was born in Vietnam but immigrated to the US as a child, documents his voyage on bicycle to re-discover the homeland that he never really knew.

He travels from the Pacific rim to Vietnam, biking 2,357 miles to arrive in to his final destination, the motherland, where he visits notable places such as Ho Chi Minh City, Hue, and Hanoi, to name a few.
Pham camps out most of the time in a pup tent, in ditches, and eventually meets up with friends in Vietnam that provide many andecdotal events involving food, rats, traffic, and places dear to his family's plight to freedom in the US.

Pham's writing style of first person means you often feel as if he is narrating a movie, as in Forrest Gump, where Tom Hanks narrates his own history for the audience.

Having done a brief trip to Vietnam myself, I can see the attraction to such a country shrouded in mystery, regardless of what your opinions are of the Vietnam War. I found myself longing to be in Pham's shoes ( or bicycle pedals ), soaking in all the richness of what was once called Indochine by the French colonists.

This is not exactly Jack Kerouac style literature but it is very heart warming and worth the read.

Don't assume that everything in this book is about the bicycling, it is really about the people along the way that he meets, as is everything in life. I too have found out that it is the people, friendships, and commonalities that bond together as human beings, not the amount money we make nor the possessions we have. God bless Andrew Pham and Vietnam.

I couldn't finish this. I so wanted to like it and the guy does write beautifully. There are some wonderful moments. There is just too much of it. Too many delicately intricately described scenes of street squalor. Too much existential despair and identity questioning. And this is one very depressed guy which makes it all the more difficult. I'd hoped to find an insiders view and its probably there among the navel gazing but... For my own mental health I had to stop. Maybe I'm just not strong enough.

This is not a travel book. It’s a very personal journey by the writer who left Vietnam after a harrowing escape shortly after the capture of Saigon City by the VC. With his journey across the sea and subsequent asylum in US, and settling in California surrounded by relatives and the Vietnamese diaspora at large, his family go through many changes, striving to achieve the American dream. Yet despite attaining financial stability and educational achievements, An continues to feel unsettled. A tragedy within the family which is never spoken off, hangs like a dark cloud over all of them.

An decides to explore his birthplace and various significant towns and villages in Vietnam. He finds a mixed response; occasionally hailed as a lucky escapee, pressed with questions about America and its riches, often derided with being a Viet-kieu, a coward and traitor of his homeland. An sees the life that could have been his in small towns and villages where people have little, but seem content but he also sees people who are often striving for more opportunities in businesses and the ugly hand of corruption in everyday transactions.

However this journey must have been taken 20-25 years ago, and Vietnam as a country made great economic strides; there has been much development; new highways, digital connectivity, tourist boom and much consumer confidence. The young are learning English to keep up with global market forces, but America is no longer seen as a shining beacon.

There are also businesses and luxury homes set up by Overseas Vietnamese who have chosen to invest in Vietnam. Hence one sees many modern shinny homes doting the smaller towns, while traveling from Hanoi to the outskirts of the city.

An’s sentiments probably reflect many immigrants who are displaced and face many questions of identity- but often find the answers within themselves. His book is well written for such a difficult personal journey.

It was a little odd reading Pham's books in reverse chronological order, not because of the story lines but because of the writing style. Eaves of Heaven shows signs of maturity that aren't as apparent in Catfish and Mandala. This slight difference caused me to waver between four and five stars.
In the end I felt Catfish and Mandala met all the criteria I require for a five star book; it's very well written, the narrative is interesting, and it affects me in ways that stay with me over time. Even though it's only been a few days since I finished it but I'm certain there are aspects of the book that are permanent in my mind and will flashback as circumstances dictate.
A bike tour of Vietnam is as a backdrop for the Pham family's epic journey through a harrowing boat escape from Vietnam, being sponsored by a Baptist community in Louisiana and finally settling in Northern California.
In the story we learn about the difficulties with being a Vietnamese American in a U.S. that still had a lot of post-war bitterness and then seen as Viet Kieu (the term in Vietnam for those who left after the war and settled in America. It's not considered a complimentary term. At times it's used as it is strictly defined with no insult intended, at other times it is meant as an extreme insult; like traitor). When Andrew (An) returns as an adult to bike from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi his tour seems a way of working out the issues associated with permanent displacement.
The family dynamics that are explored bring a lot to the story as well. There are aspects of tragedy (as is the case with his sister Chi) and his father drove himself and the kids very hard (many would say to a fault). There was a lot of bitterness and resentment but in the end, despite all the differences, I was touched by the family rather than critical of them. When you know the parent's background (which is written about in Eaves of Heaven) I think you tend to be a little less critical.
I think this would be a great book for a book club discussion.

This book was not what I expected, it's not really a travel memoir and the bicycle journey itself plays a very small part. There were several different threads running through it surrounding his family history in and escaping from Vietnam, his brother Minh's story and his return to Vietnam to revisit the places he knew when he was a child. It doesn't paint a pleasant picture of either America or Vietnam, in fact both are decidedly uncomfortable, which most likely comes from my privileged perspective, but also from the way he views both, he is particularly harsh about the Vietnamese people. It was an interesting read all the same.

Only 78 pages into the book, but I already know this is going to be one of my favorite books of all time.

I'm so glad I stumbled upon this book. My 23 year old son was taking off for Southeast Asia with the intention to go to Viet Nam with two friends. I picked this up for him and he didn't have room for another book so I read it. Lots of really emotional stuff about family and being between two cultural identities. Great travel log with history and memoir mixed in. Really well written, I thought. Good read.

3.5 stars. I appreciate the heart and soul Mr. Pham put into writing this book. However, it was at times quite negative towards Vietnam and the Vietnamese. It's a perspective I don't agree with. I spent a month in Vietnam at the beginning of 2020 (pre-COVID), and it seems to me the place has changed a lot in the 20 years since Catfish and Mandala was published. Still, I found Andrew X. Pham's memoir to be a fascinating look into how Vietnam's national psyche has evolved. I admire how far the country has come in 2 decades. I realize that I am looking at all of this from an outsider's perspective, so it would be interesting to hear what the author has to say about Vietnam in 2020.

Very moving. Bracingly honest. Probably worst book you could read before starting a two week vacation in Vietnam.

Such a good travel memoir. Truly: writing, the perspective, the attitude, the honest observations, the family history. I was here for it. Pham was born in Vietnam in the early 70s and fled with his family to the US when he was 10 where he has lived since and now during an identity crisis decides to go back for the very first time. Not just that, he doesn't simply try to catch up with estranged family and walk the old neighborhood, no, he plans to cycle the country. After already cycling up the US west coast and chunks of Japan. Ambitious, and in between the now chapters of traveling and cycling we get looks back to his childhood, escaping the country and then his life in the USA at different life stages. A memoir about home and roots and family, also about traveling and journeys we go on. That's the book, and it was so good but I think I already said that but only because it's true.

Obviously, there is a lot of trauma but not just the expected, you know war and such, but also troubled family interactions. I don't know if these things are considered spoilers in a memoir but maybe for some it might be of value to know that he goes a bit into the fact that his sister was trans and ended up committing suicide. I didn't expect that here and for me it made for a richer life story.

Center stage has Pham's relationship with his Vietnamese identity. It's the classic (and sad that that's classic) struggle of being between the chairs: in the US he is often not considered American, now in Vietnam he is either mistaken for a foreigner or labeled a Viet-Kieu (someone who lived abroad and now returned). We see how he deals with the different labels and how he views himself, how he deals with the discrimination on both sides. Especially the attacks he faces traveling Vietnam were tough and surprising for me to read about (and yes, there was everything from minor comments down to physical threats). It was really refreshing to read a travel memoir that doesn't paint the country in question in only beautiful colors, he is honest and he is harsh and rightfully so. Given, this memoir is from the 90s and attitudes might have changed but he had a rough time there. And I found that so interesting, often with immigrant stories the old home country gets a very favorable treatment, here you'll get the whole picture which of course has beauty but also a lot of ugliness. One moment that especially stood out to me was where the police kicked him out of a hotel in the middle of the night because that hotel was only for citizens and he was meant to stay at a more expensive tourist place (for his safety, supposedly, yet they meant for him to cycle through a dangerous neighborhood in the middle of the night..). Yikes. He was often not welcome. Furthermore, he gives us unflinching looks at the poverty and Vietnam's struggles, he shares stories of how the bacteria in food made him severely ill repeatedly. The customs and traditions among people, for better and worse. There are some wild and sad anecdotes in here.

The writing is fantastic, observant with just enough poetic edge to give me that little extra. Pham has a recent novel, historical romance isn't my thing but who knows, maybe I give it a try because the writing here was so good here. He knows how to capture a moment and how to walk in the feelings in between, in the unsaid but felt. He truly went through the landscape AND memory of Vietnam.

4.5*

PS. I tried to figure out why I don't want to give 5* but stick with a super strong 4* and the only thing I could come up with is that this is written by a man, you can tell that here and there. Like, he points to sexist attitudes in the culture and in his family but as a man himself while disagreeing and criticizing it to the reader he can walk away from these moments a little to easy. Makes some mild jokes about the heavy prostitution in the Vietnam. I think a woman would have written differently about it. By no means did I find his writing misogynistic or something along those lines, not at all, it's just that little nuance where I know I would have connected more with a female writer and their additional struggles.