The chapters alternate between the life of a once admired soldier, who is now weak and ailing, in his home in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and that of his daughter Mai, who grew up in Saigon's twin city, Cholon.

Forty years later, Minh and his daughter Mai live in a close-knit Vietnamese immigrant community in suburban Virginia.

As Mai discovers a series of devastating truths about what really happened to her family during those years, Minh reflects upon his life and the story of love and betrayal that has remained locked in his heart since the fall of Saigon.

In sensuous and searing detail, Lan Cao brings Saigon’s past vividly to life through the eyes of her child narrator, Mai, following the girl and her father halfway around the world, to a suburb in Virginia, where forty years later, Mai’s trauma unravels.

In this fractured world where old wars, loves and losses live on, The Lotus and the Storm is a passionate testament to the truth that the past is present—inseparable, inescapable, enduring.