Read & Run on the Road: Book Club Run of The Gangster We Are All Looking For

On this 4.2 mile, easy-paced book club run, we explore some of the real-life places where the author’s young narrator lived in The Gangster We Are All Looking For. Set predominantly in the Linda Vista neighborhood of San Diego, the narrator immigrates from Vietnam to San Diego in 1978 at the age of six. In a story that oscillates between her memories of Vietnam and her new experiences in San Diego, we observe the world through the whimsical, elusive, and sometimes heart-breaking eyes of a child.

During the route for this Read & Run on the Road event, created and led by Chelsey Stone, we’ll stop at six different locations corresponding to the story and finish for a post-run discussion with light bites at the Linda Vista Library Branch (after all, author Lê Thi Diem Thúy went to this library as a child).

This is the main run for the book, but we thought, given the narrator does live briefly in an apartment in San Diego’s Little Saigon, it was only fitting to bring San Diegans to this part of our city. We are therefore leading a bonus run Thursday May 16 at 6 p.m. in Little Saigon. If you sign up for this run, you get a discount on part two.

As this event is a book club run, we highly encourage you to read The Gangster We Are All Looking For prior to joining the run.

Read & Run on the Road events are independently-organized, licensed events with Read & Run Tours.