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The Italy Letters
A surreal, dream-like account of an achingly sensual love affair from a queer Vietnamese American novelist and cult favoriteThe Italy Letters is a slim, powerful shot of literary fantasia from one of America’s best-kept secrets. Long a cult favorite, visionary writer Vi Khi Nao weaves an unforgettable and highly distinctive story of a love affair suffused with longing, erotic passion, and heartbreak – all while painting a picture of the scabby underside of Las Vegas.This beautiful and mesmerizing novel by a queer Vietnamese American writer is a brilliant and unclassifiable work of fiction that takes the form of a series of letters written by the unnamed narrator to her lover in Italy … part of a stream-of-consciousness narrative that is by turns poignant, bawdy, funny, and disturbing – and often beautifully poetic. The story touches, obliquely but powerfully, on the immigrant experience, LGBTQIA identity, social class in the academy, writing, betrayal, sex, and homesickness. The narrator is in the process of caring for her declining mother, who is both deteriorating in health but remains imperious – not perhaps an uncommon dynamic, and one that is sketched with great compassion, humor, and yes, exasperation. The result is an authentically distinctive piece of writing from an underrated American writer on the cusp.
192 pages, Paperback
First published August 13, 2024
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3560 people want to read
About the author
Vi Khi Nao
37 books173 followersVi Khi Nao is the author of many books and is known for her work spanning poetry, fiction, play, film, and interdisciplinary collaborations. Her forthcoming novel, The Italian Letters, is scheduled for publication by Melville House in 2024. In the same year, she will release a co-authored manuscript titled, The Six Tones of Water with Sun Yung Shin, through Ricochet. Recognized as a former Black Mountain Institute fellow, Vi Khi Nao received the Jim Duggins, PhD Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize in 2022.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 86 reviews
August 17, 2024
I would consider myself a fan of the stream of consciousness narrative and books without plots, but this was too stream of consciousness-y and had too little plot for even me to enjoy. It felt like I was just reading every random thought of this person, and all of them felt so watered down and shallow. It’s not even that this book was bad per se, it’s just that I found literally zero value in it and the only thought I was left with when I finished this one was, “What was the point?”
Thank you NetGalley for the advanced reader copy. Book is out as of August 13, 2024.
Thank you NetGalley for the advanced reader copy. Book is out as of August 13, 2024.
August 27, 2024
I thought intimacy was hard to find. Much harder than falling in love.
This is an intense, almost claustrophobic piece of writing that showcases a mind in a state of overthinking so visceral that it's almost in a condition of stasis. It's therefore ironic that the title implies letters, a two-way communication that isn't the mode in which this narrative exists.
All about the vibe rather than a story, this depicts a painful sense of loneliness, anxiety, pain and desire - the latter a kind of reaching out that is never fully reciprocated. Built as a series of pieces that co-exist alongside the letters (emails? posts?), voicemails and interactions that connect the narrator with her world - the married object of her desire in London, her dying mother, a friend and sometimes lover in LA - everything is filtered through the over-active mind of the narrator.
In that sense, this reads more like a journal, a voice speaking to itself notwithstanding its address to 'you' - and even sex is solitary.
The prose is mesmerizing, far more tightly controlled than it might appear (though there is the occasional forced simile or metaphor - canned sardines thrust me out of the text, for example!) But mostly this impressed and worked for me, holding me in thrall through the restless, obsessive searching for connection that jumps between contemporary news, writing, culture, instances of racism, struggles with desire and guilt and what it means to be a 'self':
This overkill of thinking of overanalyzing of over-connecting could violate the existence of self and others and one's sense of volition over time. We were just leaves that knew how to breathe and we were just animals that had teeth we could use. And, having teeth did not imply that we were destined to be hunters or that we were born to roar.
September 21, 2024
Major thanks to NetGalley and Melville House for offering me an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts:
"𝘈𝘯𝘥, 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘥𝘦, 𝘪𝘧 𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺, 𝘐 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘻𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘢𝘨𝘰 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘴, 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘞𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘰 𝘰𝘯 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘤𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘨."
There comes a book every so often that sits in my own uncomfortably that it slaps me awake at night to tell me that there is so much wrong in me that needs correcting. And the first steps in the corrections is to see it, acknowledge it, and then tackle it.
In epistolary form, we grapple with the fraught mother-daughter relationship looking over love, lust, being poor and unstable while looking for will in God and guilt, all with the Vietnamese in Vegas backdrop.
This is all personal. Hits home too closely. There is a small strip of land, a desolate plaza for Vietnamese food that seems pangea’d from Little Saigon in California that floats by itself 15 minutes away from the Las Vegas strip. It’s an alienation that I always coupled with the oddness that was Sin City itself, but there is another kind of alienation growing up Vietnamese in America that I could never fully register.
Amalgamations of this alienation exist in the text. Where I feel Moshfegh examines disgust in the human body, Nao examines it in the human spirit.
Many times over, in Nao’s even balance between melodrama and matter-of-fact despair and delusion, embarrassment, awkwardness, shame, repulsion, fascination, and utter shock, in humor and truth, washed over me that elevated me into reality.
Does that make sense?
An elevation into reality?
The saturation a bit stronger, the feelings a bit tighter. Nothing felt wide or far off. Everything felt magnified. I could see the pores of life, the sores of past sorrows gaping open, unapologetically.
But the great sorrow that encompasses the book is actually in how lonely this entire experience is because it is written in the form of a letter, a message that ends up faulting into the dust of ashes. Sent, unsent, it doesn’t matter, but it is from one perspective. One voice, one soul. Trapped in the self too much that there is no possibility of an elsewhere.
And this is life.
“𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦, 𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘣𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰, 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬.
𝘠𝘦𝘵, 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘐 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰, 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦? 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘐 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘣 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘢𝘥𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴?"
"𝘈𝘯𝘥, 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘥𝘦, 𝘪𝘧 𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘢𝘸𝘢𝘺, 𝘐 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘻𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘴𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘥𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘢𝘨𝘰 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘴, 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘞𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘰 𝘰𝘯 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘤𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘨."
There comes a book every so often that sits in my own uncomfortably that it slaps me awake at night to tell me that there is so much wrong in me that needs correcting. And the first steps in the corrections is to see it, acknowledge it, and then tackle it.
In epistolary form, we grapple with the fraught mother-daughter relationship looking over love, lust, being poor and unstable while looking for will in God and guilt, all with the Vietnamese in Vegas backdrop.
This is all personal. Hits home too closely. There is a small strip of land, a desolate plaza for Vietnamese food that seems pangea’d from Little Saigon in California that floats by itself 15 minutes away from the Las Vegas strip. It’s an alienation that I always coupled with the oddness that was Sin City itself, but there is another kind of alienation growing up Vietnamese in America that I could never fully register.
Amalgamations of this alienation exist in the text. Where I feel Moshfegh examines disgust in the human body, Nao examines it in the human spirit.
Many times over, in Nao’s even balance between melodrama and matter-of-fact despair and delusion, embarrassment, awkwardness, shame, repulsion, fascination, and utter shock, in humor and truth, washed over me that elevated me into reality.
Does that make sense?
An elevation into reality?
The saturation a bit stronger, the feelings a bit tighter. Nothing felt wide or far off. Everything felt magnified. I could see the pores of life, the sores of past sorrows gaping open, unapologetically.
But the great sorrow that encompasses the book is actually in how lonely this entire experience is because it is written in the form of a letter, a message that ends up faulting into the dust of ashes. Sent, unsent, it doesn’t matter, but it is from one perspective. One voice, one soul. Trapped in the self too much that there is no possibility of an elsewhere.
And this is life.
“𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦, 𝘪𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘣𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰, 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴𝘯’𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬.
𝘠𝘦𝘵, 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘐 𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰, 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦? 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘐 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘣 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘢𝘥𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴?"
January 28, 2024
Sheesh!! More people should be talking about this writer. Brilliant pen.
July 19, 2024
I was captivated by Vi Khi Nao’s writing in The Italy Letters. Raw, erotic, poetic, passionate, this novel is contextualized in today’s time and in the daily life of a Vietnamese immigrant lesbian writer with a gambling suicidal mother. The narrator (only named once) is obsessed by a straight woman in England. Most of the book is her fantasies about telling this woman who is about to get married to a man how she wants to have sex with her.
“My mother and I then fell into a second wave of sleep. When I woke, my body was swollen with desire for you and you had written me.”
These letters may also be fantasy. While the book addresses a you, it is not epistolary but a kind of stream of consciousness about the communication between them and within the narrator’s mind. Her passion for her beloved and her own discomfort with life pulls the reader into her mind.
There is a break from her obsession with the straight woman when she tries to live with roommate Cherimoya in Las Vegas, has an unsuccessful affair with her, and then gets attracted to her sister.
While the narrator is caretaking her mother and trying to keep her from gambling and wanting to end her life, she herself begins to wonder if life is worth living. Her mother brings in some Vietnamese culture as does the narrator preparation of Pho and other dishes. In a way she is like her mother but her obsession is women, especially the inaccessible married one in London.
Did her mother smell her sexual aromas? Yes and there’s a lot about food. Periodic nonsequitors, name-dropping of lesbian writers, of political figures and criminals with their sexual crimes give a sense of the current time period and at times the creepy side of life. How creepy is a country that would elect a kind of Hitler for president? (She thinks)
Vi’s teaching life and her poverty, her struggles with publishing as well as her own book of poetry, The Vanishing Point of Desire, all seem like characters in the novel.
The narrator’s poetic point of view is beautifully detailed in the book: “My desire for Cherimoya’s sister remained quiet like a plum.” I loved the way she talked so openly about her throbbing clitoris: “My body had become a pool of circular light, particularly near my clitoris.” But there is also an unrelenting dark side.
I wonder if it matters whether something is fictional or not. Vi animated everything as a character, even a tree in the end. It was a really fascinating read.
I appreciate the ARC preview from NetGalley. The book will be published in August.
“My mother and I then fell into a second wave of sleep. When I woke, my body was swollen with desire for you and you had written me.”
These letters may also be fantasy. While the book addresses a you, it is not epistolary but a kind of stream of consciousness about the communication between them and within the narrator’s mind. Her passion for her beloved and her own discomfort with life pulls the reader into her mind.
There is a break from her obsession with the straight woman when she tries to live with roommate Cherimoya in Las Vegas, has an unsuccessful affair with her, and then gets attracted to her sister.
While the narrator is caretaking her mother and trying to keep her from gambling and wanting to end her life, she herself begins to wonder if life is worth living. Her mother brings in some Vietnamese culture as does the narrator preparation of Pho and other dishes. In a way she is like her mother but her obsession is women, especially the inaccessible married one in London.
Did her mother smell her sexual aromas? Yes and there’s a lot about food. Periodic nonsequitors, name-dropping of lesbian writers, of political figures and criminals with their sexual crimes give a sense of the current time period and at times the creepy side of life. How creepy is a country that would elect a kind of Hitler for president? (She thinks)
Vi’s teaching life and her poverty, her struggles with publishing as well as her own book of poetry, The Vanishing Point of Desire, all seem like characters in the novel.
The narrator’s poetic point of view is beautifully detailed in the book: “My desire for Cherimoya’s sister remained quiet like a plum.” I loved the way she talked so openly about her throbbing clitoris: “My body had become a pool of circular light, particularly near my clitoris.” But there is also an unrelenting dark side.
I wonder if it matters whether something is fictional or not. Vi animated everything as a character, even a tree in the end. It was a really fascinating read.
I appreciate the ARC preview from NetGalley. The book will be published in August.
July 19, 2024
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book for review. Unfortunately, I hated every page of it. I suffered through, though, in hopes that it would get better, or that there would be any semblance of a plot in any part of it. There wasn't. It was all purple prose written in a desperate attempt to sound poetic but ultimately made little sense, random hate speech, and winding, spiraling, repetitive thoughts which were completely unproductive. One of the "letters" was 80 pages long. If I received an 80-page letter written like this, I would file for a restraining order.
November 30, 2025
This seems to aim for a modern iteration of the stream-of-consciousness technique, as in, rather than being a second rate Joyce/Woolf imitator Vi Khi Nao is more interested in applying the style to the social media era and portraying how the endlessly thinking mind works when most of its time is spent scrolling into oblivion. Drowning in personal and mundane details and emotional desensitization to the news feed where acts of violence and terrorism become compartmentalized in the same part of the brain as memes and what you cooked for dinner that night, only to once in awhile be hit with striking moments of lyrical (in this case mostly erotic) beauty which reminds us there has to be more to life than the bath of digital noise we're immersed in, not that we ever learn to stop and stand still no matter how much profundity we find when we do. I wonder if Nao is the best writer to tackle this approach - she has some incredible passages, but she veers a bit too close to MFA Spiritual Miracle territory at times for my taste. But overall I really like what this is going for and I think it feels properly generational - capturing the feeling of the world closing in to suffocate you even when you have the entirety of it at your fingertips, the sim-stim eternity of being up into the late AM all alone with nothing but your thoughts and the dull glow of digital light reflecting them back at you, and thinking primarily of the insurmountable distances you feel between yourself and everyone else when all you know of them are the points on the screen they choose to show you. I don't know where to go in this world anymore.
August 19, 2024
This is an intriguing book, kind of a thought experiment, about the nature of communication in the digital age, particularly the relevance of letter-writing when more immediate forms like texting and social media are omnipresent. It’s an epistolary novel- my favorite kind- but it’s a record of the lengthy, unsent letters that feels more like a diary addressed to a loved one that references the actual correspondence between the two. The narrator is a poet caring for her sick mother and arranging a book tour while writing to and receiving letters from a married woman across an ocean. The narrator’s focus is always pulled more towards the woman in England vs the immediacy of the care her mother requires.
Parts of the prose reminded me of the best letters between vita and virginia, both during their amorous and platonic phases, although entirely more modern with Instagram posts and text messages interspersed with letters; it questions what silence means in modern times when everyone is so connected. I prefer more of a narrative structure- I would place this in the more experimental camp- but it is lovely.
Parts of the prose reminded me of the best letters between vita and virginia, both during their amorous and platonic phases, although entirely more modern with Instagram posts and text messages interspersed with letters; it questions what silence means in modern times when everyone is so connected. I prefer more of a narrative structure- I would place this in the more experimental camp- but it is lovely.
March 31, 2025
This juuuuuust scraped a 4 star from me, largely because the writing was so goddamn beautiful! If you're not a fan of purple prose, this is not the book for you, and I must admit it was a bit flowery for me at times; some of the metaphors went straight over my head, even when I really sat with them I just couldn't quite puzzle them out. However, the metaphors that did resonate with me really hit, and on a semantic level it is outright astounding - Vi Khi Nao's vocabulary is next level. I did struggle with the overall structure... Or rather, complete lack thereof! Aside from the waxing and waning of our narrator's yearning, not much really happened. In many ways, this was simply a character study, but I would've appreciated a semblance of plot. I did appreciate our narrator's perspective - isn't pining over a straight girl just the worst?? And enjoyed the exploration of wanting the idea of a relationship, but being unable to actually be in one; "For some reason, in my mind, your front door was red. Though I wouldn't know and I didn't want to ask in case it shattered the fragile impression I had of your door". I also appreciated the relationship between our protagonist and her mum, and the conversation this opened up around suicide, especially with the topic of assisted suicide being so prevalent in the UK right now, as well as how the theme of poverty underpins the majority of the text. Overall, this wasn't an easy read, but it was definitely a thought-provoking one, even if not all that much happened!
August 15, 2024
What a beautiful way to tell a story. I’ve been eagerly awaiting this book for a long time and it does not disappoint. This book left the imprint of a hand holding mine.
June 6, 2024
Thanks to NetGalley and Melville House for the ARC!
Vi Khi Nao’s The Italy Letters charts the ambiguous borders between the platonic and the erotic over a long-distance friendship, exploring the discomfort of intimacy that is strong enough to scaffold more.
Framed largely as a letter to the narrator’s friend and would-be lover, the book is stomach-turningly precise in its themes. In many narratives, love is framed as a culmination; in this book, it is an interruption as we follow a woman struggling to care for her mother. Desire just constantly chews at the margins of her life.
There are so many moments of shared history and history the narrator wishes were shared. The prose is filled with poetic non-sequiturs that somehow still feel right at home, the way one might fumble over too many words in the hope that something—anything—would further a relationship. Along the way, the narrator expresses uncertainty about her own capacity for love, questioning whether the desire is specifically tied to the friend or rooted there because it symbolizes a singularly healthy relationship. These ambiguities and complexities populate the book until it’s almost too much to bear.
I loved it.
Vi Khi Nao fashions every sentence into an artifact and asks each one to carry a difficult past and an imagined future, and it feels like a privilege to see an artist of this caliber at work.
Vi Khi Nao’s The Italy Letters charts the ambiguous borders between the platonic and the erotic over a long-distance friendship, exploring the discomfort of intimacy that is strong enough to scaffold more.
Framed largely as a letter to the narrator’s friend and would-be lover, the book is stomach-turningly precise in its themes. In many narratives, love is framed as a culmination; in this book, it is an interruption as we follow a woman struggling to care for her mother. Desire just constantly chews at the margins of her life.
There are so many moments of shared history and history the narrator wishes were shared. The prose is filled with poetic non-sequiturs that somehow still feel right at home, the way one might fumble over too many words in the hope that something—anything—would further a relationship. Along the way, the narrator expresses uncertainty about her own capacity for love, questioning whether the desire is specifically tied to the friend or rooted there because it symbolizes a singularly healthy relationship. These ambiguities and complexities populate the book until it’s almost too much to bear.
I loved it.
Vi Khi Nao fashions every sentence into an artifact and asks each one to carry a difficult past and an imagined future, and it feels like a privilege to see an artist of this caliber at work.
September 20, 2024
The Italy Letters is half an epistolary novel, half a stream of consciousness, from our unnamed narrator to her married lover. It’s a dreamlike short novel, with a perfect autumnal feel, one that sucks you in and keeps you absorbed the entire way along. You come out of it in a kind of haze, almost unsure of what you’ve read. You’ll find that this is a book to keep you thinking for a while after you finish it.
Rep: Vietnamese lesbian mc, bi li, Muslim bi side character
CWs: past domestic abuse
Rep: Vietnamese lesbian mc, bi li, Muslim bi side character
CWs: past domestic abuse
November 26, 2024
Talked about her clit so many times I consider it a main character and am upset she didn’t give it a name. Favorite line was “Not even a pigeon would be moved to exercise its small asshole on you”.
February 15, 2025
3.75 stars rounded up for GR.
I like the stream of consciousness style— it makes for a quick read with not many breaks needed to digest the story. A solid “small plot, big vibes” book.
Thank you to Melville house for my copy!
I like the stream of consciousness style— it makes for a quick read with not many breaks needed to digest the story. A solid “small plot, big vibes” book.
Thank you to Melville house for my copy!
August 21, 2024
I usually enjoy stream-of-consciousness novels, but they really shine when the protagonist is intriguing and compelling. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case with "The Italy Letters". The narrative felt monotonous, with no real plot to hold onto—just a series of disconnected thoughts and vibes. I kept waiting for something to grab me, but I struggled to find any point or deeper meaning in it all. Ultimately, it left me feeling bored and disconnected.
October 4, 2024
you know those very particular stream-of-consciousness books you either hate or love? the ones with no real plot, and just a cascade of thoughts one after the other. “The Italy Letters” by Vi Khi Nao is exactly that but with a twist. add a queer epistolary relationship between the narrator and an older married woman and there you have it, that's the book. are you in?
it’s one of those books that defies description, so original and unique that capturing its essence with words feels impossible. part rambling, part love letter, it’s unlike anything else. short but spellbinding, it feels suspended in time, drifting between the Middle Ages and a sensory saturated Las Vegas in the 21st century. our nameless narrator is an over-thinker, and I identified so much to her ubiquitous, relentless thoughts and racing brain. i don't know whether i consumed this novel, or if it consumed me, but one of us wasn’t left indifferent.
it’s one of those books that defies description, so original and unique that capturing its essence with words feels impossible. part rambling, part love letter, it’s unlike anything else. short but spellbinding, it feels suspended in time, drifting between the Middle Ages and a sensory saturated Las Vegas in the 21st century. our nameless narrator is an over-thinker, and I identified so much to her ubiquitous, relentless thoughts and racing brain. i don't know whether i consumed this novel, or if it consumed me, but one of us wasn’t left indifferent.
dnf
February 20, 2024dnf @17%
was really excited abt this one bc the synopsis boosts it so much lol but i got bored :/ prose wasn't pretty enough to keep me interested
was really excited abt this one bc the synopsis boosts it so much lol but i got bored :/ prose wasn't pretty enough to keep me interested
September 21, 2024
I spent all day vacillating between life and death, between suicide and moving forward, between eating a peach or a plum, between peeling my eyelids off the wall or the floor, between stroking the keyboards or the legs of the table, between submitting myself to vacancy or on we, between climbing the bed or the bathroom stall, putting on my eyeglasses or upsetting my perception of reality, between the rape of the Sambu women or the My Lai women, between cutting myself with a knife or with a scythe, between taking my hands off the keyboards or my eyes off the door, between being dead or being unreasonable, between sleeping on a mat or on an inflatable mattress, between texting or smelling the water pipe, between shutting off the fan, or turning away from the ceiling, between the spoon or the fork, between inserting myself with a carrot or a dildo, between reaching out or reaching forward for the cashews, between the swollen purse or the canning table, between hardships or belonging, between solitude or loneliness, between ending or starting a new life, between working hard to be even more poor or to be already poor, but working less, between the cup or the rim of the glass, between embracing the easel or losing the paint.
January 4, 2025
"We think the riches are far and away from our reach, but what if your poverty came because you were too blind to see your already emerged wealth?
I shifted this thinking today. Today I own what I do not own. And tasted what I have already tasted."
"She phoned to tell me that brilliant people with great talent often did not win awards. We learned lately it was whom we knew that dictated the size and dimension of our accolades. I told her she must learn how to beat the system: meaning she must learn to adapt. An abrupt, awkward conversation ensued between us and I ended up departing from the conversation to let her be.
In this empty space between us, should I ask you now, "How are you?"
After a week of hurried living and an enormous distance between us, the umbilical cord of desire and need between us has been severed. I feel utterly disconnected from your life in London, though not completely disconnected from you."
I shifted this thinking today. Today I own what I do not own. And tasted what I have already tasted."
"She phoned to tell me that brilliant people with great talent often did not win awards. We learned lately it was whom we knew that dictated the size and dimension of our accolades. I told her she must learn how to beat the system: meaning she must learn to adapt. An abrupt, awkward conversation ensued between us and I ended up departing from the conversation to let her be.
In this empty space between us, should I ask you now, "How are you?"
After a week of hurried living and an enormous distance between us, the umbilical cord of desire and need between us has been severed. I feel utterly disconnected from your life in London, though not completely disconnected from you."
December 28, 2024
Erotic, eloquent stream of consciousness
“It’s a city filled with sinners in their sincerity to be fallen.”
“I don’t want to say that my love for my mother isn’t born out of guilt.”
“Another part of me wanted to explore and differentiate the difference between desire and the collapse of desire.”
—> The sterility of this statement…Do we perform social experiments on ourselves?
“I had imagined myself in various, slanted states of your embraces.”
“Rolls of unwritten tape lapsed and got rewritten into our days.”
—> so perfectly captures gaps in communication with loved ones
“Time spent knowing each other is foreplay”
“It’s a city filled with sinners in their sincerity to be fallen.”
“I don’t want to say that my love for my mother isn’t born out of guilt.”
“Another part of me wanted to explore and differentiate the difference between desire and the collapse of desire.”
—> The sterility of this statement…Do we perform social experiments on ourselves?
“I had imagined myself in various, slanted states of your embraces.”
“Rolls of unwritten tape lapsed and got rewritten into our days.”
—> so perfectly captures gaps in communication with loved ones
“Time spent knowing each other is foreplay”
Read
July 30, 2024DNF @ 33%
This was pitched as an epistolary novel, but instead, it’s one long letter that’s much more stream of conscious and not letter-like at all. There’s something about the protagonist that’s really rubbing me the wrong way and that I’m not enjoying. This style of writing isn’t my jam, especially if the protagonist isn’t going to grow/learn, but I can definitely see folks who like books like this - messy protagonist, “no plot, just vibes,” and stream-of-conscious writing.
Unfortunately, I won’t be finishing this. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!
This was pitched as an epistolary novel, but instead, it’s one long letter that’s much more stream of conscious and not letter-like at all. There’s something about the protagonist that’s really rubbing me the wrong way and that I’m not enjoying. This style of writing isn’t my jam, especially if the protagonist isn’t going to grow/learn, but I can definitely see folks who like books like this - messy protagonist, “no plot, just vibes,” and stream-of-conscious writing.
Unfortunately, I won’t be finishing this. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!
July 31, 2024
been putting this off bc of weird formatting on the epub but was such a mistake. the stream of conciousness in beautiful language style totally works for me and this is a great addition to the genre.
thanks to netgalley and publisher for the arc!
thanks to netgalley and publisher for the arc!
July 30, 2024
Scintillating prose and a perfect summer read. Captures the pangs of digital feels so well it's a bit hard to believe.
Thank you to Melville House and NetGalley for the ARC copy!
Thank you to Melville House and NetGalley for the ARC copy!
June 11, 2025
I actually just love stream of consciousness books so much
4 stars because I wanted more about the mom!
4 stars because I wanted more about the mom!
February 11, 2025
i wanted to like this but it was agonizingly boring. i didn’t really care for the narrator i just felt like i couldn’t relate to her at all
May 30, 2024
I received an ARC for this book from NetGalley for free.
This is one of those stream of consciousness books that kind of lack a narrative goal and you're just there to enjoy the ride. Quite fast read this had lot of really great and imaginative writing, and I really enjoyed lot of the themes here.
I do usually struggle little bit keeping my interest up with stream of consciousness writing and again towards the end I found myself struggling to finish this.
Overall still worthwhile read that I would recommend.
This is one of those stream of consciousness books that kind of lack a narrative goal and you're just there to enjoy the ride. Quite fast read this had lot of really great and imaginative writing, and I really enjoyed lot of the themes here.
I do usually struggle little bit keeping my interest up with stream of consciousness writing and again towards the end I found myself struggling to finish this.
Overall still worthwhile read that I would recommend.
January 31, 2024
An entrancing bit of experimental fiction, funny and sexy.
June 4, 2024
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Melville House Publishing for an advance copy of this novel about love, relationships, being a writer, and the joy of having someone to share your thoughts and dreams with, even if only in letters.
Love might be soft as an easy chair as a songwriter once said, but being in love, being in a relationship, is hard on the soul. By relationships I mean friends, family and those we want to be more with. Every relationship has doubts, fears, errors in meaning, errors in feeling. That fear of being honest, sharing the thoughts that clog our brains, and make humans the individuals that we are. Individuals who want to be a part of something. Even if the one we have an interest in is an ocean away, and is married. The Italy Letters by Vi Khi Nao is a novel told of love, lust life and letters, told longhand without the benefit of emojis, or even a good ole LOL.
The book is an epistolary novel about a a young queer Vietnamese American writer who is currently living in Las Vegas watching her mother die. The writer is dealing with an upcoming reading in Los Angles, meeting an old roommate/ girlfriend, past abusive relationships, her Mother's bankruptcy, and a love who lies over the ocean in Italy, with her husband. The writer creates a series of letters, broken into geographical locations. A few are begun in Las Vegas, the Midwest, and New England. All are stream of consciousness from news of the day about sex pests in the news, to past relationships, food, the writer's Mother and her health, and a little bit of spicy tales. From the trial dates a date can be determined but that is not important. From the letters we learn about the writer's state of mind. And how the writer's literary career is going Plus we see the complicated relationship between the mother and daughter. And how much the writer's lover means to the writer and her hanging on.
A slim book, but one that hits quite a wallop in many ways. Vi Khi Nao is one heck of a writer. Beng a grump most stories about love and being in love roll over me, but not this story. Within a few pages I was sucked into the tale, in awe at the skill of the author in keeping everything in line and interesting, while letting the narrator seem so scattered around. There is a method to the writing, and as things become well messier for the narrator, the story becomes clearer, and sadder in a why, and yet hopeful. One can tell that Vi Khi Nao is a poet for there are lines in here that just stood out, and stayed with me, even as I type this, I keep looking at my notes and going, darn that's real good. The language sweeps one in, even in the spicy writing this shows as there is far more emotion, feeling, desire and well eroticism than 100 clones of 50 Shades of Grey. There is even comments on the state of America shown by her mother's money and health issues, along with all the trials that the narrator is following on her phone.
This is the first I have read of Vi Khi Nao and I am excited to read more. There is a lot going on, some of which as a male I probably missed. The writing is so very good, the characters so interesting, even the mother's male friends are described so well one can see them in the mind's eye of the reader. A very good story, and I look forward to more by Vi Khi Nao.
Love might be soft as an easy chair as a songwriter once said, but being in love, being in a relationship, is hard on the soul. By relationships I mean friends, family and those we want to be more with. Every relationship has doubts, fears, errors in meaning, errors in feeling. That fear of being honest, sharing the thoughts that clog our brains, and make humans the individuals that we are. Individuals who want to be a part of something. Even if the one we have an interest in is an ocean away, and is married. The Italy Letters by Vi Khi Nao is a novel told of love, lust life and letters, told longhand without the benefit of emojis, or even a good ole LOL.
The book is an epistolary novel about a a young queer Vietnamese American writer who is currently living in Las Vegas watching her mother die. The writer is dealing with an upcoming reading in Los Angles, meeting an old roommate/ girlfriend, past abusive relationships, her Mother's bankruptcy, and a love who lies over the ocean in Italy, with her husband. The writer creates a series of letters, broken into geographical locations. A few are begun in Las Vegas, the Midwest, and New England. All are stream of consciousness from news of the day about sex pests in the news, to past relationships, food, the writer's Mother and her health, and a little bit of spicy tales. From the trial dates a date can be determined but that is not important. From the letters we learn about the writer's state of mind. And how the writer's literary career is going Plus we see the complicated relationship between the mother and daughter. And how much the writer's lover means to the writer and her hanging on.
A slim book, but one that hits quite a wallop in many ways. Vi Khi Nao is one heck of a writer. Beng a grump most stories about love and being in love roll over me, but not this story. Within a few pages I was sucked into the tale, in awe at the skill of the author in keeping everything in line and interesting, while letting the narrator seem so scattered around. There is a method to the writing, and as things become well messier for the narrator, the story becomes clearer, and sadder in a why, and yet hopeful. One can tell that Vi Khi Nao is a poet for there are lines in here that just stood out, and stayed with me, even as I type this, I keep looking at my notes and going, darn that's real good. The language sweeps one in, even in the spicy writing this shows as there is far more emotion, feeling, desire and well eroticism than 100 clones of 50 Shades of Grey. There is even comments on the state of America shown by her mother's money and health issues, along with all the trials that the narrator is following on her phone.
This is the first I have read of Vi Khi Nao and I am excited to read more. There is a lot going on, some of which as a male I probably missed. The writing is so very good, the characters so interesting, even the mother's male friends are described so well one can see them in the mind's eye of the reader. A very good story, and I look forward to more by Vi Khi Nao.
August 18, 2024
The Italy Letters is a slim novel by the Vietnamese American writer Vi Khi Nao, just released in the United States.
Vi Khi Nao is a very prolific writer, poet and artist living in Iowa City. She has the gift to blend different genres together, creating HYBRID novels such as The Italy Letters. The Italy Letters is a suburban epistolary novel, with an autobiographical touch, if I may say so. A stream of consciousness about love, intimacy, identity, immigration and food.
The cover is very interesting: it shows a naked back of a woman embracing a lemon in her arm.
The lemon embodies different meanings in the novel:
Italy, Napoli and Love in its splendor and harshness.
The plot is simple: the narrator, who is in my opinion, the writer, lives in Las Vegas, 'a very beautiful city, ‘For its bright light and its angels of darkness’, that she has learned to love slowly. She is Vietnamese American and lives there with her 67-year-old convalescent mother who ‘has had a hard, torturous life’.
The narrator in the book informs us of the letters she writes to her beloved while taking care of her mother.
Her beloved is what Beatrice is for Dante, an angelic creature. She is an italian poetess from Napoli, 'born and raised in New York', straight and who lives with her husband in London. She is nicknamed Gatto. This is clearly an impossible love that generates a strong depression in the protagonist's soul, but at the same time gives her the strength to continue living.
In The Italy Letters four cities frame the story: Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Iowa and Boston. The part dedicated to Las Vegas is the most beautiful, it is the city where the author’s creative pen was born and formed. Food is an important aspect of the story, it represents intimacy and identity, culture and traditions of countless migrations. Among many vietnamese foods, made of a few simple ingredients that are available in America, the narrator mentions many traditional dishes including banh xéo with nuoc mam, vietnamese crepes with fish sauce. For Vi, the latter embodies the taste of the Vietnamese diaspora in the Pacific Ocean:
‘ I believe the reason why I loved fish sauce was because it embodied the sea for me. Specifically, the Pacific Ocean where I spent three days and three nights inside the sarcophagal body of the boat. We were trying to escape Vietnam, my family of six, with other families, too. There were thirty of us in a tiny boat. The fish sauce seemed to coat and distill the salt water of the ocean.’
In addition, the fish sauce represents her identity as a Vietnamese American Lesbian. Since everyone has their own food, the pages are colored by the flavor of the Neapolitan , American, Korean and European cuisine.
Furthermore, food is also the metaphor of sex, violent love and abuse too.
In conclusion, I may say that 'The Italy Letters' can be considered the novel of the writer's adulthood. It is a novel that focuses its strength on the analysis and personal, sometimes disruptive, implications of loving passion and desire towards the loved one.
Translation into Italian (also of the author's poems) is desirable.
I recommend it to an adult female audience.
Rating: 4/5
Cw: rape, abuse.
Thank you to NetGalley and Melville House for providing me with a free ARC in exchange of an honest review.
Vi Khi Nao is a very prolific writer, poet and artist living in Iowa City. She has the gift to blend different genres together, creating HYBRID novels such as The Italy Letters. The Italy Letters is a suburban epistolary novel, with an autobiographical touch, if I may say so. A stream of consciousness about love, intimacy, identity, immigration and food.
The cover is very interesting: it shows a naked back of a woman embracing a lemon in her arm.
The lemon embodies different meanings in the novel:
Italy, Napoli and Love in its splendor and harshness.
The plot is simple: the narrator, who is in my opinion, the writer, lives in Las Vegas, 'a very beautiful city, ‘For its bright light and its angels of darkness’, that she has learned to love slowly. She is Vietnamese American and lives there with her 67-year-old convalescent mother who ‘has had a hard, torturous life’.
The narrator in the book informs us of the letters she writes to her beloved while taking care of her mother.
Her beloved is what Beatrice is for Dante, an angelic creature. She is an italian poetess from Napoli, 'born and raised in New York', straight and who lives with her husband in London. She is nicknamed Gatto. This is clearly an impossible love that generates a strong depression in the protagonist's soul, but at the same time gives her the strength to continue living.
In The Italy Letters four cities frame the story: Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Iowa and Boston. The part dedicated to Las Vegas is the most beautiful, it is the city where the author’s creative pen was born and formed. Food is an important aspect of the story, it represents intimacy and identity, culture and traditions of countless migrations. Among many vietnamese foods, made of a few simple ingredients that are available in America, the narrator mentions many traditional dishes including banh xéo with nuoc mam, vietnamese crepes with fish sauce. For Vi, the latter embodies the taste of the Vietnamese diaspora in the Pacific Ocean:
‘ I believe the reason why I loved fish sauce was because it embodied the sea for me. Specifically, the Pacific Ocean where I spent three days and three nights inside the sarcophagal body of the boat. We were trying to escape Vietnam, my family of six, with other families, too. There were thirty of us in a tiny boat. The fish sauce seemed to coat and distill the salt water of the ocean.’
In addition, the fish sauce represents her identity as a Vietnamese American Lesbian. Since everyone has their own food, the pages are colored by the flavor of the Neapolitan , American, Korean and European cuisine.
Furthermore, food is also the metaphor of sex, violent love and abuse too.
In conclusion, I may say that 'The Italy Letters' can be considered the novel of the writer's adulthood. It is a novel that focuses its strength on the analysis and personal, sometimes disruptive, implications of loving passion and desire towards the loved one.
Translation into Italian (also of the author's poems) is desirable.
I recommend it to an adult female audience.
Rating: 4/5
Cw: rape, abuse.
Thank you to NetGalley and Melville House for providing me with a free ARC in exchange of an honest review.
July 3, 2025
At the end of The Italy Letters, Vi Khi Nao’s unnamed narrator concludes with a sentence that should have been the thesis of this book: “…people put too much meaning or significance into things and space and intent and pure chance.” We credit fate through happenstance, create intent out of coincidence. Sometimes a train ride is just a train ride. And if the narrator’s story had satisfyingly brought us to this final statement of resignation, it would feel earned and heartfelt. Heartbreaking. Instead, The Italy Letters is 183 pages of what reads like a stream of consciousness, a one-sided letter to a person who may not have ever existed. The narrator is unreliable and harried, frantic in her writing, and reflective in an overwrought and overwritten sense.
Because the letters are never reciprocated, it’s easy to look at this former lover as being temporary, love for her unrequited. And then to see the narrator’s letters as a frenetic scribbling of a person slowly losing her grip on reality. Sharing every element of her life, every thought without editing, to hold onto the idea of this person for as long as possible. For letting go means never again. And so long as the person matters, there is hope. And what are we without that.
It’s just as easy to see the narrator as someone who is entirely delusional. Because she has yet to find love, she makes up this character across the pond, gives her all the required elements of a perfect lover, and then writes letters she’ll never send to a person who’ll never read them. This is sad. It also makes her plight slightly more difficult to relate to, as giving every thought a voice and every action a reason for being expressed, the letters feel less desperate and more obsessive. It also makes for a really boring reading experience, makes it hard to parse what’s necessary from what’s extraneous. What’s real from what’s imagined. What’s expressed too often (her desire to have sex with the recipient of the letters - dear lord, give your clitoris a rest) and what’s not expressed enough (anything other than the wispy remnants of a person who may be unprepared to receive an encyclopedia of words).
Because the letters are never reciprocated, it’s easy to look at this former lover as being temporary, love for her unrequited. And then to see the narrator’s letters as a frenetic scribbling of a person slowly losing her grip on reality. Sharing every element of her life, every thought without editing, to hold onto the idea of this person for as long as possible. For letting go means never again. And so long as the person matters, there is hope. And what are we without that.
It’s just as easy to see the narrator as someone who is entirely delusional. Because she has yet to find love, she makes up this character across the pond, gives her all the required elements of a perfect lover, and then writes letters she’ll never send to a person who’ll never read them. This is sad. It also makes her plight slightly more difficult to relate to, as giving every thought a voice and every action a reason for being expressed, the letters feel less desperate and more obsessive. It also makes for a really boring reading experience, makes it hard to parse what’s necessary from what’s extraneous. What’s real from what’s imagined. What’s expressed too often (her desire to have sex with the recipient of the letters - dear lord, give your clitoris a rest) and what’s not expressed enough (anything other than the wispy remnants of a person who may be unprepared to receive an encyclopedia of words).
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