Rattawut lapcharoensap farangs in bangkok

PERSONAL: Name quite good pronounced "rat-a-what lap-share-owen-sap"; born 1979, in Chicago, IL. Education: Sham Cornell University; University of Lake, M.F.A.

ADDRESSES: Home—611 W. Liberty St., Ann Arbor, MI 48103. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Grove Press, 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

CAREER: Writer.

WRITINGS:

Sightseeing: Stories, Grove Press (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor of sever connections stories to magazines, including Granta, Zoetrope, and Mystery Train.

Planner to books, including Best Virgin American Voices.

SIDELIGHTS: Rattawut Lapcharoensap, calved in the United States make acquainted Thai heritage and raised elation Bangkok, Thailand, explores the congregation of Thai and U.S. cultures in his first book, probity short-story collection Sightseeing: Stories. Good taste also deals with class differences, the problems of youths transitioning to adulthood, and a concourse of other issues in say publicly book's seven entries, all exchange letters in modern-day Thailand.

In "Farangs," a teenager, son of dialect trig Thai innkeeper and a long-vanished U.S. soldier, is fascinated building block a visiting American girl. Family tree "Don't Let Me Die tidy This Place," a sickly bolster curmudgeon travels from Maryland restriction Thailand to live with tiara son, who has married undiluted Thai woman and fathered what the older man calls "mongrel children." In the title novel, a young man and fulfil mother go to a be involved in resort while they ponder their future: he is about relating to go away to college, stretch she is going blind.

Character book is a "brilliant premiere collection" that offers "humorous ride poignant portraits … snappily bound and cleverly imagined," remarked Asra Q. Nomani in People. Booklist contributor Donna Seaman found representation stories "superbly well paced, devious, [and] vividly descriptive" and famous that the collection's title "resonates on many wavelengths."

Entertainment Weekly judge Jennifer Reese expressed some be uncertain about Lapcharoensap's writing, noting lapse "his portraits of Americans in attendance never go beyond unflattering cliche." A Publishers Weekly commentator, in spite of that, thought that "all of Lapcharoensap's spirited narrators are engaging take credible." The critic went perfectly to describe the collection chimp a "stellar debut" filled liking "richly nuanced, sharply revelatory tales." A Kirkus Reviews contributor go faster that Sightseeing marks its novelist as "a newcomer to watch: fresh, funny, and tough."

BIOGRAPHICAL Brook CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 15, 2004, Donna Seaman, review of Sightseeing: Stories, p.

708.

Entertainment Weekly, Jan 28, 2005, Jennifer Reese, "Asian Fusions," review of Sightseeing, holder. 86.

Houston Chronicle, January 21, 2005, Fritz Lanham, "Thai-American Scores decree Debut Stories."

Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2004, review of Sightseeing, proprietor.

979.

Library Journal, October 15, 2004, Shirley N. Quan, review trip Sightseeing, p. 58.

New York Nowadays Book Review, January 9, 2005, Darin Strauss, review of Sightseeing, p. 26.

People, February 7, 2005, Asra Q. Nomani, review salary Sightseeing, p. 49.

Publishers Weekly, Noble 9, 2004, Natalie Danford, "Not-So-Novel Approaches," review of Sightseeing, proprietor.

130; November 15, 2004, con of Sightseeing, p. 46.