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The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam
Longlisted for the 2025 National Book Award in Nonfiction.
Situated between memoir, social criticism, and conceptual art, The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam is an incisive response to a modernist classic and an affecting exploration of the poetics and politics of our times.
In her 1933 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein invented a new literary form by narrating her own story from the perspective of her partner, blurring the lines between portrait and self–portrait. Almost a century later, experimental filmmaker and artist Lana Lin has resurrected Stein’s project to tell a different story of queer love, life, and artistic collaboration.
At heart a candid chronicle of her partner Lan Thao’s life journey from Việt Nam during the war, and her own troubled history as a gender–queer Taiwanese American, Lin draws in subjects as varied as photography, cancer, tropical fruit, 9/11, and Eve Sedgwick’s eyeglasses, weaving an intimate landscape of living that is also a critical investigation of race and gender.
Situated between memoir, social criticism, and conceptual art, The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam is an incisive response to a modernist classic and an affecting exploration of the poetics and politics of our times.
In her 1933 The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein invented a new literary form by narrating her own story from the perspective of her partner, blurring the lines between portrait and self–portrait. Almost a century later, experimental filmmaker and artist Lana Lin has resurrected Stein’s project to tell a different story of queer love, life, and artistic collaboration.
At heart a candid chronicle of her partner Lan Thao’s life journey from Việt Nam during the war, and her own troubled history as a gender–queer Taiwanese American, Lin draws in subjects as varied as photography, cancer, tropical fruit, 9/11, and Eve Sedgwick’s eyeglasses, weaving an intimate landscape of living that is also a critical investigation of race and gender.
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Published December 23, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
December 22, 2025
Lin borrows from and builds on Stein’s form of autobiographical, memoir writing as she authors The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam from her partner’s perspective. While the book unfolds unchronologically, the narrative opens with a focus on Lin’s young adult life in 1988 New York as a Taiwanese American who will come to self-identify as a person who is queer and gender nonconforming. As she lives in the center of the art world, Lin’s loneliness and litany of anger in her 20s will dissipate, if not entirely, then at least in part. Working as a film editing professor, Lin encounters her long-term partner, Lam, a Vietnamese then-Canadian person who also self-identifies as queer and gender nonconforming. She covers topics including mangoes, 9/11, cancer and health advocacy, marriage, visiting one’s old homes, self-presentation, Covid, La Jetée, sea turtles, and herrings. In later chapters, Lin emphasizes Lam’s childhood years in Sài Gòn, their family’s migration to a Vietnamese refugee camp in Malaysia when Lam is 12, and subsequent resettlement in Montréal, Vancouver, and Sauga. Lin and Lam endure their respective maelstrom of disorienting experiences, and the two will come together to ground the other and themselves in their Washington Heights and CT homes.
With both vigilance and reverie, the author examines Lin and Lam’s ethnic, national, gender, sexual, and familial identities in the context of their work as artists and, most notably, their romantic relationship. Invoking significant moments in their lives before and after becoming a “we,” Lin shares memories with a rhythmic propulsion, either from her or Lam’s perspective, blending memoir, history, and cultural critique, focusing on Taiwanese and Vietnamese personhood, trauma, and resilience. Perhaps The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam is considered genre-bending due to its format (admittedly, the third-person writing took me a minute to get oriented to). I expected the work to center on Lam’s coming-of-age story, and a slight dissatisfaction lingers because I wanted Lin to provide even more—more academic analysis, more information on their art project, more on their biological family. Instead, the author draws out the pair’s mutual, interwoven, interdependent partnership, “the forest and its understory.” What emerges, then, is Lin’s separate story, which permeates Lam’s and cannot be told apart.
I rate The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam 3.5 stars.
My thanks to Dorothy and NetGalley for an ARC.
With both vigilance and reverie, the author examines Lin and Lam’s ethnic, national, gender, sexual, and familial identities in the context of their work as artists and, most notably, their romantic relationship. Invoking significant moments in their lives before and after becoming a “we,” Lin shares memories with a rhythmic propulsion, either from her or Lam’s perspective, blending memoir, history, and cultural critique, focusing on Taiwanese and Vietnamese personhood, trauma, and resilience. Perhaps The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam is considered genre-bending due to its format (admittedly, the third-person writing took me a minute to get oriented to). I expected the work to center on Lam’s coming-of-age story, and a slight dissatisfaction lingers because I wanted Lin to provide even more—more academic analysis, more information on their art project, more on their biological family. Instead, the author draws out the pair’s mutual, interwoven, interdependent partnership, “the forest and its understory.” What emerges, then, is Lin’s separate story, which permeates Lam’s and cannot be told apart.
I rate The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam 3.5 stars.
My thanks to Dorothy and NetGalley for an ARC.
December 14, 2025
I loved this luminous, intellectual, humorous and original story of the love between Lana Lin and Lan Thao Lam. I am in no way as smart or well read as Lin, yet I was still able to enjoy the many references and quotes in the book as they are shared with a generosity and humbleness that reflects the authors unique point of view and casts light on the fascinating life she and Lam have lived together.
May 28, 2025
A really lovely portrait. In writing about their partner Lana Lin also writes about themself and their love. Reading this on my honeymoon, particularly the parts where Lin touches on their partner’s familial history, made me look at my husband and his familial history more closely and with more care. The writing style is very matter of fact but clearly holds so much care and attention. Thankful for the opportunity to read an advanced copy and looking forward to the publication on September 30th.
Want to read
September 17, 2025On the National Book Award longlist, 2025
December 29, 2025
Lana Lin’s The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam is a witty, tender, and quietly radical book about queer partnership, migration, and being rendered invisible, whilst insisting on being seen anyway. Written through the voice of Lin’s partner, H. Lan Thao Lam, the book traces Lan Thao’s childhood in Việt Nam during the war alongside Lin’s own experience as a gender-queer Taiwanese American.
The audiobook narration by Rebecca Lam is a perfect match. Her delivery carries a whimsical, generous energy that makes the work feel accessible, informative, and genuinely fun. Listening feels like hearing a witty, reflective life account from a close friend: warm, precise, and fully attuned to the book’s spirit.
The structure riffs on Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, borrowing its chapter headings and achronological flow, but Lin uses the form to tell a very different story; this is one shaped by colonial ghosts, model-minority pressure, racism, and queer survival. This is “autobiomythography”, and it is intimate, whimsical, funny, fragmented, and deeply political.
Erasure is a constant presence. Lin writes about those made invisible by empire and history as phantoms: “[….]those of us who have been ghosted by colonial and imperial rulers may return with a vengeance to retrieve our histories, our own ghost stories. We may rise up and rise and rise and rise.[…]”. Figures like themselves who are here to reclaim their stories. The book lingers on who gets named and remembered, and who is reduced to a footnote or disappears altogether, especially when it comes to Asian and queer lives.
What makes the book so compelling is its attention to the everyday: awkward New York arrivals, bike accidents in Chinatown, cooking dinner, watching E.T., noticing how loneliness and humour coexist. The final chapters touch on the Vietnam War and anti-Asian violence during COVID and these are heartbreaking without being heavy-handed, including moments of quiet beauty, like the couple’s post-COVID life in an old Connecticut mill, that offer a sense of grounding and connection.
Rebecca Lam’s narration is a joy: felt like hearing a close friend tell you a life story that’s both deeply personal and culturally sharp.
A smart, generous book about love, history, and the small, meaningful details that keep marginalised lives from disappearing. #pudseyrecommends
Big thanks to Dreamscape Media and Netgalley for the alc.
The audiobook narration by Rebecca Lam is a perfect match. Her delivery carries a whimsical, generous energy that makes the work feel accessible, informative, and genuinely fun. Listening feels like hearing a witty, reflective life account from a close friend: warm, precise, and fully attuned to the book’s spirit.
The structure riffs on Gertrude Stein’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, borrowing its chapter headings and achronological flow, but Lin uses the form to tell a very different story; this is one shaped by colonial ghosts, model-minority pressure, racism, and queer survival. This is “autobiomythography”, and it is intimate, whimsical, funny, fragmented, and deeply political.
Erasure is a constant presence. Lin writes about those made invisible by empire and history as phantoms: “[….]those of us who have been ghosted by colonial and imperial rulers may return with a vengeance to retrieve our histories, our own ghost stories. We may rise up and rise and rise and rise.[…]”. Figures like themselves who are here to reclaim their stories. The book lingers on who gets named and remembered, and who is reduced to a footnote or disappears altogether, especially when it comes to Asian and queer lives.
What makes the book so compelling is its attention to the everyday: awkward New York arrivals, bike accidents in Chinatown, cooking dinner, watching E.T., noticing how loneliness and humour coexist. The final chapters touch on the Vietnam War and anti-Asian violence during COVID and these are heartbreaking without being heavy-handed, including moments of quiet beauty, like the couple’s post-COVID life in an old Connecticut mill, that offer a sense of grounding and connection.
Rebecca Lam’s narration is a joy: felt like hearing a close friend tell you a life story that’s both deeply personal and culturally sharp.
A smart, generous book about love, history, and the small, meaningful details that keep marginalised lives from disappearing. #pudseyrecommends
Big thanks to Dreamscape Media and Netgalley for the alc.
October 22, 2025
In The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam, Lana Lin reimagines the art of life-writing through a dazzling blend of memoir, social critique, and conceptual art. Echoing Gertrude Stein’s groundbreaking work, Lin turns the genre inside out exploring identity, queerness, memory, and belonging in ways that feel both intimate and intellectually expansive.
Her storytelling is layered and luminous. Through her partner Lan Thao’s migration story and her own reflections as a gender-queer Taiwanese American artist, Lin crafts a narrative that resists simplicity. Every page reveals something new about love as collaboration, art as resistance, and identity as a living, breathing act of creation.
It’s a work that transcends category: part love letter, part artistic experiment, part meditation on the intersections of gender, race, and home. Lin’s prose is as poetic as it is piercing, making The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam a bold and deeply resonant contribution to contemporary queer literature.
Her storytelling is layered and luminous. Through her partner Lan Thao’s migration story and her own reflections as a gender-queer Taiwanese American artist, Lin crafts a narrative that resists simplicity. Every page reveals something new about love as collaboration, art as resistance, and identity as a living, breathing act of creation.
It’s a work that transcends category: part love letter, part artistic experiment, part meditation on the intersections of gender, race, and home. Lin’s prose is as poetic as it is piercing, making The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam a bold and deeply resonant contribution to contemporary queer literature.
January 13, 2026
The book is called an autobiography and is in the first person, but the books is actually written by H. Lan Thao Lam's partner - Lana Lin. It's an homage to Gertrude Stein's book (which I haven't read) An Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. As a consequence, as I am reading this I keep thinking that what she's telling me about "herself" is not about her and when she writes about her partner, she's writing about herself. I actually enjoyed the mental gymnastics. The story covers a wide range of topics: belonging, immigration, love, queerness, isolation, intimacy, etc. About 2/3 of the way through she describes how Lam and her family were able to escape Viet Nam after the collapse of the government, and I found her description of her visiting her former refugee camp moving in its simplicity. But again, the mental gymnastics made it interesting because the first person narrator is not actually Lam telling her refugee story but her partner writing about it. I read this on audio. The narrator is excellent and has a soft voice which complements the intimacy of the writing.
January 6, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ALC!
This was an interesting mix of (auto)biography and novel, and I think this mix made me not quite sure how to feel about the book.
The content itself was very interesting, dealing with queerness, mixed-race and refugee identity, and Vietnamese and Taiwanese history. The autobiographical and biographical style was very interesting, as were the various experiences Lana and Lan Thao shared. However, sometimes it felt like there was a little much happening (which really makes it feel more biographical than fictional).
It was written in an easy, accessible style, and the narrator also did a very good job bringing Lana's and Lan Thao's story to life. I really enjoyed this work.
This was an interesting mix of (auto)biography and novel, and I think this mix made me not quite sure how to feel about the book.
The content itself was very interesting, dealing with queerness, mixed-race and refugee identity, and Vietnamese and Taiwanese history. The autobiographical and biographical style was very interesting, as were the various experiences Lana and Lan Thao shared. However, sometimes it felt like there was a little much happening (which really makes it feel more biographical than fictional).
It was written in an easy, accessible style, and the narrator also did a very good job bringing Lana's and Lan Thao's story to life. I really enjoyed this work.
November 28, 2025
This may be the best book I've read this year; it's certainly among the top 10. It's timely, it's touching, it's beautifully written. Lana Lin and H. Lan Thao Lam are fascinating individuals with remarkable but relatable life stories and when they come together they create extraordinary things.
While this book explicitly references and is to some extent modeled on/after Gertrude Stein's 'The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas', there is no need to be familiar with that work to enjoy this one. It stands on its own as a powerful, ingeniously crafted book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
While this book explicitly references and is to some extent modeled on/after Gertrude Stein's 'The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas', there is no need to be familiar with that work to enjoy this one. It stands on its own as a powerful, ingeniously crafted book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
January 16, 2026
This memoir is a beautiful, humorous, informative, honest portrait of queer love, invisibility and wanting to be seen, immigration/migration, race and storytelling. The format in which it is written (Lana writing from the point of view of her partner, Lan Thao) offers a compelling intimacy into the small, yet meaningful, details of both their pasts and day to day lives. This was a quick, accessible, tender and artistic read. I love that I randomly stumbled upon this book and would highly recommend it.
Content Warnings: Moderate: Cancer, Hate crime, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Abandonment
Minor: Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Racism, Violence, Xenophobia, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual harassment, War, Classism, Pandemic/Epidemic
Content Warnings: Moderate: Cancer, Hate crime, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Abandonment
Minor: Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Racism, Violence, Xenophobia, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Sexual harassment, War, Classism, Pandemic/Epidemic
December 21, 2025
Lesbian yearning core but also kinda pretentious flowery words and descriptions. Also very diasporic core. I guess it is romantic as a concept for the couple but could’ve been executed with more thought about how it will be received by the readers? Or perhaps the point is the sticky type of intimacy that I’m not a fan of.
November 24, 2025
Philosophically resonant and full of love and beauty.
January 12, 2026
4 stars. still not enough. i need more. could've described more on their romance but i think it was well written. could've extended on lam's coming out etc.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews