The Unpassing

A searing debut novel that explores community, identity, and the myth of the American Dream through an immigrant family in Alaska.

Finalist for the NBCC John Leonard Prize for Best First Book

Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

A Taiwanese immigrant family of six struggles to make ends meet on the outskirts of Anchorage, Alaska. The hardworking father is employed as a plumber and repairman, while the mother, an unpredictably emotional matriarch, holds the house together. When ten-year-old Gavin contracts meningitis, he falls into a nearly fatal coma. He wakes up a week later to learn that his little sister Ruby was infected, too. She did not survive.

Routine takes over for the grieving family: the siblings care for each other and befriend a neighboring family; distance grows between the parents as they deal with their loss separately. But things spiral when the father, guilt ridden after Ruby's death, is sued for not properly installing a septic tank, which results in grave harm to a little boy. In the ensuing chaos, what really happened to Ruby finally emerges.

With flowing prose evoking the Alaskan wilderness's terrifying beauty, Lin explores the fallout after the loss of a child and the way in which a family is forced to grieve in a place that doesn't yet feel like home. Emotionally raw and subtly suspenseful, The Unpassing is a deeply felt family saga that dismisses the American dream for a harsher, but ultimately more profound, reality.