Born in London, Ontario, and raised in Ottawa, Lam's parents came to Canada from the Chinese expatriate community in Vietnam.

He attended St. Pius X High School and did his medical training at the University of Toronto, graduating in 1999.

Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures won the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada's most prestigious literary award, on November 7, 2006.

Following Lam's Giller win, Shaftesbury Films announced that it had reached a deal to adapt Bloodletting into a television series,[4] which debuted in January 2010 on HBO Canada.

[5] His first novel, The Headmaster's Wager, was published in 2012 by Doubleday Canada and has been shortlisted for the 2012 Governor General's Literary Award.