Join Eastwind for a book discussion with Dickson Lam, author of Paper Sons: A Memoir.

Click here for a link to the Facebook Event

Set in a public housing project in San Francisco, PAPER SONS: A MEMOIR explores Lam’s transformation from a teenage graffiti writer to a high school teacher working with troubled youth while navigating the secret violence in his immigrant family’s past.

“What a superb, moving, tough, and courageous memoir. Lam has given us the gift of his heart.”
—Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize winner

“From China to Hong Kong to San Francisco’s North Beach projects, Dickson Lam’s Paper Sons (and daughters) navigate the mysteries and betrayals of deleted and recovered memory, of tagging crews and migrant parents, of generational secrets. Dickson Lam’s unforgettable characters blaze like falling stars and illumine a world. Paper Sons, written in short pieces like a document torn and reassembled, is also the story of a determined younger brother who reclaims the truth, and the fierce, protective sister who shows him the way.” –Jayne Anne Phillips, National Book Award Finalist

“Raw, monstrous, white-knuckled recollections of love-hate, hate-love, abuse, regression, repression, and all the darkness-and-light any foolish-brave memoirist could possibly summon forth. It rings true to anyone who has gulped deeply from that well of pain. Highly recommended!” –Andrew X. Pham, author of Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheeled Voyage Through the Landscape and Memory of Vietnam

“This moving memoir about coming of age in the hardscrabble streets of San Francisco while coming to terms with a dysfunctional family sheds fresh light on the Asian American immigrant experience. Dickson Lam presents an unflinching and poignant portrayal of his troubled father and the emotional toll of being a father figure to inner-city youth. Charting a heart-wrenching journey of strength and forgiveness, Paper Sons is an exhilarating debut.”
–Rigoberto Gonzalez, author of Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa

Paper Sons: A Memoir
​$17.95
Now accepting pre-orders!
Release Date: March 6, 2018
Author: Dickson Lam
ISBN: 9781938769283
Publisher: Autumn House
Binding: Paperback
Date of Publication: March 6, 2018

Dickson Lam’s work has appeared in StoryQuarterly The Kenyon Review Online, Hyphen Magazine, The Normal School, PANK, The Good Men Project, The Rumpus, and Kartika Review. He is a VONA alum and has been a resident fellow at the Millay Colony for the Arts and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts. He holds MFA degrees in creative writing from the University of Houston and Rutgers-Newark. Lam is an Assistant Professor of English at Contra Costa College.