Publishers Weekly
★ 07/25/2022
Set in 1996, Lien’s insightful, emotional debut intelligently incorporates cultural concerns into a tightly focused mystery. Journalist Ky Tran has just launched her career as a newspaper reporter when she returns home to her Vietnamese community of Cabramatta, Australia, for the funeral of her popular 17-year-old brother, Denny, who was beaten to death at the Lucky 8 restaurant on the night of his high school graduation. Since Ky’s grief-stricken parents, who speak limited English, are incapable of pushing for answers, and the police are stymied because none of the dozens of bystanders at the Lucky 8, some family friends, will admit to witnessing Denny’s murder, she decides to investigate herself. Ky must maneuver around her parents’ traditional ways, fear of white people, and superstitions rooted in their Vietnamese culture. The 100% white police force is, at best, indifferent as the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta is a refugee enclave with the worst heroin epidemic in Australian history and where violent crime is the norm. Lien skillfully blends xenophobia and the Vietnamese residents’ suspicions of outsiders into a scintillating plot. Readers will eagerly await Lien’s next. Agent: Hillary Jacobson, ICM Partners. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
Powerful… Lien's debut is moving and beautifully rendered.” — Washington Post on All That's Left Unsaid
“An urgent story that commands an audience. All That's Left Unsaid is a gripping and unflinching narrative that is as heart-wrenching as it is unputdownable.” — New York Times and internationally bestselling author, Karin Slaughter
“While the mystery is compelling, like the richest literary crime fiction, this story has broader ambitions than revealing who did it. As the investigation progresses, Lien... explores the contingent nature of the welcome afforded to Asian immigrants in ostensibly liberal places like Australia.... Lien’s poignant and impeccable storytelling shines as she lays waste to the pretenses.” — Oprah Daily on All That's Left Unsaid
"Lien’s insightful, emotional debut intelligently incorporates cultural concerns into a tightly focused mystery.... Readers will eagerly await Lien’s next." — Publishers Weekly (starred review) on All That's Left Unsaid
“A moving debut about loss, grief, and addiction… All That’s Left Unsaid is thought-provoking, highlighting a heroin epidemic, the ties that bind family, and the glaring anti-Asian sentiment that infects Australia.” — Shondaland
“An unforgettable debut, utterly compelling from start to finish. Original. Heartbreaking. Gripping. I just loved it!” — Liane Moriarty #1 New York Times bestselling author on All That's Left Unsaid
“This novel will make you travel through time: to an embattled Australia in 1996, to a youth shaped by your parents' pain, to the day after the biggest mistake of your life. Tracey Lien's story pulls you back twenty years, then pushes you, heartbroken and stunned, into today's bright light. All That's Left Unsaid is honest, aching, and filled with beauty. It will transport you.” — Julia Phillips, internationally bestselling author of Disappearing Earth
“All That's Left Unsaid is a stunning debut, an unputdownable mystery combined with a profoundly moving family drama about the ways we hurt and hide from those we love most—and how we mend and strengthen those lifelong bonds. It blew me away.” — Angie Kim, Internationally bestselling author of Miracle Creek
“One of the most profoundly affecting novels I've ever read, All That's Left Unsaid is a wrenching, propulsive story about the desire to belong, the collision course between displacement and injustice, the long life of inherited trauma and the short lives we all live....Every character is rendered with astonishing precision and empathy, creating a vital and unforgettable portrait not just of a Vietnamese-Australian community, but a family fighting its way forward in the aftermath of a violent crime.” — Katie Gutierrez, author of More Than You'll Ever Know
"Tracey Lien's debut novel, All That's Left Unsaid, is poignant and timely. A finely crafted novel about family, trauma, and the ways in which they bind us all." — Catherine Dang, author of Nice Girls
"Memorable and powerful....Lien's debut communicates the specific operation of generational trauma with nuance and insight.... A fictional tragedy evoked with such clarity and specificity that it will linger in your memory as if it really happened. — Kirkus Reviews on All That's Left Unsaid
"A shocking, deeply moving and truly special debut. Savage and heart-breaking, All That’s Left Unsaid tackles some hugely important issues, yet is also a richly crafted mystery, a story that is both impossible to put down and impossible to forget" — Chris Whitaker, author of We Begin at the End
"All That’s Left Unsaid might remind some readers of Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects.... Yet Lien’s novel, by turns gripping and heartbreaking, makes room for forgiveness and understanding." — BookPage.com on All That's Left Unsaid
"Fans of Roselle Lim and Sonya Cobb will appreciate Lien's keen exploration of the cultural impulse to close ranks after a tragedy, and the power of clarity. " — Booklist on All That's Left Unsaid
"Tracey Lien’s debut about a young Vietnamese-Australian woman who tries to solve her brother’s murder is perfect for readers who love Celeste Ng and Brit Bennett." — Katie Couric Media
"Beautifully written, with the voices of the characters insisting to be heard, this literary thriller cries out for compassion." — The Big Thrill on All That's Left Unsaid
“Devastating-in-the-best-way.” — E! Online on All That's Left Unsaid
"[A] thoroughly immersive literary mystery" — Oprah.com
Kirkus Reviews
2022-06-22
In a Vietnamese immigrant community in Sydney, Australia, a woman investigates her teenage brother's murder.
The troubles in 1990s Cabramatta are many. The North and South Vietnamese people who came to the area as refugees after the war are deeply marked by the horrors they experienced, and they are inflicting their damage on the first-generation Australians who are their children. Lien's debut communicates the specific operation of generational trauma with nuance and insight. The psychological predicament of the families she writes about is exacerbated by Cabramatta's heroin epidemic and institutionalized anti-Asian racism among the "blondies" of White Australia. Between these two factors, when 17-year-old Denny Tran is beaten to death after Cabramatta High School's senior formal, the police show little interest in finding the murderer. Denny must have been a junkie or in a gang, they assume. And since everyone who was at the popular banquet hall where it happened, including the boy's best friends and one of his teachers, claims to have been in the bathroom and seen nothing, there's no reason for them to think otherwise. His older sister, Ky, returns from her newspaper job in Melbourne to attend the funeral and ends up staying on in shock and outrage to find the truth of what happened. Her brother was no junkie or gang member: A sweet, kind, funny, almost perfect boy, he died with the "Most Likely To Succeed" award he had just won in his pocket. Her investigation will take her back into her and her brother's shared past, particularly her friendship with Minh Le—Minnie—who long ago went from beloved best friend to stranger. If Lien goes a bit too far in carrying out the mission of the book's title, giving more emotional accounting and exposition in dialogue than is ideal, this book is nonetheless memorable and powerful.
A fictional tragedy evoked with such clarity and specificity that it will linger in your memory as if it really happened.
