"Catfish and Mandala is the poignant, lyrical tale of an American odyssey - a solo bicycle voyage around the Pacific Rim to Vietnam - made by a young Vietnamese-American man in pursuit of both his adopted homeland and his forsaken fatherland. Intertwined with an often humorous travelogue spanning a year of discovery is a memoir of war, escape, and, ultimately, family secrets."--BOOK JACKET.

"There is Pham's stepgrandfather Le, the fish-sauce baron of Phan Thiet, who claims his ancestors invented the condiment; his father, a POW of the Vietcong, who finally leads his family on a perilous boat journey to the land of their freedom; and his beloved sister Chi, a post-operative transsexual who commits suicide."--BOOK JACKET.

"Pham deftly limns the lasting scars of the Vietnam War and the plight of a refugee family to create a haunting portrait of America, framed by the perspective of an outsider, a stranger straddling two continents."--BOOK JACKET.