Van and Linny Luong are as baffling to each other as their parents Vietnamese legacy is to them both. Van, the quintessential overachiever, has applied the same studied diligence to her law career and to her marriage a beautiful idea that vaporized when Mr. Right walked out. Linny pretty, fashionable, untethered is grasping for purpose when her affair with a married man takes a humiliating turn. Each is the last person her sister would call, but when Mr. Luong summons them home for his American citizenship party, Van and Linny find themselves communing about their past their late mother, their fathers obsession with his Luong Arm invention for short people, even the irony of their romantic straits. As these unlikely confidantes chart the uncertainty that defines them, they forge a new relationship and the wherewithal to overcome disappointment.