I did not enjoy reading this book,but I appreciate the author‘s skill in portraying the feelings of a young man born in Vietnam to a Vietnamese mother and a French Catholic priest,as he navigates life in Paris. It is the follow up to the Pulitzer Prize winning,The Sympathizer,which I did not read. On the surface, it is about gangsters, drug deals, prostitutes, communists, and gross behavior, but underneath,it is a book of philosophy.Not for me.