Rental House
A Novel
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
DAKOTA JOHNSON’S TEATIME PICTURES DECEMBER BOOK CLUB PICK
ONE OF NPR’S “BOOKS WE LOVE” 2024
“One of the most nuanced, astute critiques of America now I’ve read in years. And it’s also frequently hilarious.”
—Los Angeles Times
“A funny, perceptive look at what it means to defy societal expectations…timeless.”
—Washington Post
“[For] basically anyone who is breathing, Rental House is a must-read."
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Sharp, insightful, occasionally heartbreaking, and incredibly relatable.”
—Gabrielle Zevin, author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
“For anyone who’s experienced demanding parents, misunderstanding in-laws, a vacation-gone-wrong, or mid-life questions about how to reconcile your own personality liabilities with those of the person you love most.”
—Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot
From the award-winning author of Chemistry, a sharp-witted, insightful novel about a marriage as seen through the lens of two family vacations
Keru and Nate are college sweethearts who marry despite their family differences: Keru’s strict, Chinese, immigrant parents demand perfection (“To use a dishwasher is to admit defeat,” says her father), while Nate’s rural, white, working-class family distrusts his intellectual ambitions and his “foreign” wife.
Some years into their marriage, the couple invites their families on vacation. At a Cape Cod beach house, and later at a luxury Catskills bungalow, Keru, Nate, and their giant sheepdog navigate visits from in-laws and unexpected guests, all while wondering if they have what it takes to answer the big questions: How do you cope when your spouse and your family of origin clash? How many people (and dogs) make a family? And when the pack starts to disintegrate, what can you do to shepherd everyone back together?
With her “wry, wise, and simply spectacular” style (People) and “hilarious deadpan that recalls Gish Jen and Nora Ephron” (O, The Oprah Magazine), Weike Wang offers a portrait of family that is equally witty, incisive, and tender.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A married, interracial couple from New York take separate vacations with both sets of in-laws in this sharp and engrossing novel. Keru, a Chinese American woman, meets Nate, a white man, while studying at Yale. The pair fall in love and get married. A few years later, the couple decides to visit the Catskills and Cape Cod with their large dog, Mantou. Tensions across the spectrum—class, culture, race, and economics—bubble up and spill over on both trips, leading to friction, arguments, and cringe-inducing comments. Keru’s Chinese immigrant parents expect the world and nothing less, while Nate’s white, working-class parents hold very unpleasant prejudices. Wang has an impressive way with dialogue, where what’s left unsaid is often as important as the false pleasantries being shared all around. Her clever and acerbic writing deftly puts the alarmingly complicated relationship dynamics on full display. This compelling family drama makes a seriously tense and engrossing read.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this wonderfully acerbic outing from Wang (Joan Is Okay), a married couple from New York City face pressure from their in-laws and others on two separate vacations. First, Nate and Keru host Keru's Chinese immigrant parents on Cape Cod, where they've rented a house. On their final night together, they debate the virtues of suffering, which Keru's mother prizes as essential to a person's success. Then they host Nate's parents, blue-collar Trump supporters from the Blue Ridge Mountains who Keru struggles to connect with, especially after Nate's mother complains about the house being too small. Five years later, the couple rents a bungalow in the Catskills, where comments from neighbors about their "double income, no kids" household activate a long-dormant fault line in the couple's relationship: Nate, a scientist, earns far less than Keru, a business consultant. Later, Nate's deadbeat older brother makes a surprise appearance, talking up his newest business venture, a gym, and pressuring Nate to invest in it. Wang excels at setting the tone with biting prose, describing the Catskills' fall foliage as the "mass death of deciduous leaves," and the scenes of family drama are compulsively readable. It's a tour de force.
