When his father leaves Thai Nguyen City for the northernmost reaches of French Indochina, Bui Van Minh must shoulder new responsibilities to help keep the family afloat. His mother's blindness and his uncle's caustic personality add to the young man's challenges.

A chance meeting with a captivating youth, Ngo Cong Thao, throws Minh's life off-kilter in a most exciting and confounding way.

The young men soon discover their feelings for one another transcend mere friendship. But the struggles under French colonial rule and the effects of the Great War alter their lives to a degree they never could have imagined.

This novella expands and significantly develops a story that first appeared in our highly acclaimed anthology A PRIDE OF POPPIES. The author's screenplay adaptation of the story received an honourable mention and was a finalist in the 15th annual American Zoetrope Screenplay Contest, judged by Francis Ford Coppola, and also won the Best LGBT Feature Screenplay category at the New Renaissance Film Festival, Amsterdam 2018.