Real Americans

(Paperback)

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'A mesmerizing multigenerational novel' BRIT BENNETT ** THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ** 'Insightful and heartfelt' GLAMOUR 'Easy to inhale' GUARDIAN 'Mesmerizing' BRIT BENNETT, author of THE VANISHING HALF *** New York City, 1999. Lily Chen is an unpaid intern, pursuing the American Dream, when she falls for a young financier - and the life of luxury his vast fortune promises. Everything she wants seems to finally be within reach. But deep down, she knows that her ambitious scientist mother, Mei, imagined so much more for her when she fled the unspoken horrors of Mao's cultural revolution. Twenty years later, Lily is a single parent, estranged from her own family and increasingly isolated from her teenage son, Nick. Desperate to break free from their life on a remote island in Washington State, Nick strives to live better than the generation before him, unable to understand his mother's choices. But when he looks into the past and is unexpectedly confronted by the ghosts of his grandmother's young life in 1960s China, he risks unsettling a legacy of family secrets - passed on from mother, to daughter, to son. Following three generations of one Chinese American family, REAL AMERICANS is a mesmerising, multilayered family drama which explores the choices we make for ourselves, and for our children. Spanning decades and continents, it is a soaring, heartfelt story about fate, fortune, and what it means to belong. *** 'Traverses time with verve and feeling' RAVEN LEILANI, author of LUSTER 'An eye-opener, imaginative and exhilarating' HA JIN, author of WAITING 'Gorgeous, heartfelt, soaring, philosophical and deft' ANDREW SEAN GREER, author of LESS

Reviews

Real Americans traverses time with verve and feeling. Khong captures how people can be strange to themselves, how bewilderment can be a site of creation (or change, or becoming) -- Raven Leilani
Aglow with love in its many forms, suffused with questions of where-and to whom-we belong, Real Americans is a book of rare charm. Khong untangles the roots of family with a wry, tender attention that will leave readers as comforted as they are challenged -- C Pam Zhang
Gorgeous, heartfelt, soaring, philosophical and deft, Real Americans turns the multigenerational novel inside out. Fate, honesty, our bargains with life. You will keep turning it over and over in your mind -- Andrew Sean Greer
Real Americans is a truly special novel. Its an elegant portrait of how we disappoint those we love, despite trying our best, and how attempts to tame humanity misunderstand its complexity. Khong masterfully unfolds each character before us, revealing their dreams and regrets, and their undying hope for better. * Nicola Dinan, author of Bellies *
Real Americans is a grand novel that explores the American psyche, dramatizing the fundamental American belief in the ability to change the world and improve humanity. Rachel Khong shows infinite and colorful perceptions of the world, which are often leavened with wisdom. Besides being a page turner, this book is also an eye-opener, imaginative and exhilarating -- Ha Jin

Author Bio

Rachel Khong is the author of Goodbye, Vitamin, winner of the California Book Award for First Fiction and named a best book of the year by NPR; O, The Oprah Magazine; Vogue; and Esquire. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, The Paris Review, and Tin House. In 2018, she founded the Ruby, a work and event space for women and nonbinary writers and artists in San Francisco's Mission District. She was born in Malaysia and lives in California.