Real Americans: A novel (Unabridged)
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • READ WITH JENNA’S MAY BOOK CLUB PICK • From the award-winning author of Goodbye, Vitamin: How far would you go to shape your own destiny? An exhilarating novel of American identity that spans three generations in one family and asks: What makes us who we are? And how inevitable are our futures?
"Mesmerizing"—Brit Bennett • "A page turner.”—Ha Jin • “Gorgeous, heartfelt, soaring, philosophical and deft"—Andrew Sean Greer • "Traverses time with verve and feeling."—Raven Leilani
Real Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster, and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn't be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love.
In 2021, fifteen-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated Washington island where he lives with his single mother, Lily. He can't shake the sense she's hiding something. When Nick sets out to find his biological father, the journey threatens to raise more questions than it provides answers.
In immersive, moving prose, Rachel Khong weaves a profound tale of class and striving, race and visibility, and family and inheritance—a story of trust, forgiveness, and finally coming home.
Exuberant and explosive, Real Americans is a social novel par excellence that asks: Are we destined, or made? And if we are made, who gets to do the making? Can our genetic past be overcome?
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Acclaimed author Rachel Khong invites us into the intimate lives of a Chinese-American family in this powerful multigenerational novel. Lily Chen is feeling stuck. As a disgruntled art history major and unpaid intern at a glossy media company, she can barely pay her rent. But when the handsome, blond-haired, blue-eyed Matthew Maier—heir to a pharmaceutical fortune—steps into her life at a company Christmas party, she lets fate guide her into a new, unknown future. The novel is smartly split into three distinctively compelling sections: the first for Lily; the second for her teen son, Nick; and the third for her headstrong scientist mother, whose past research sends aftershocks through the lives of her daughter and grandson. In total, the sweeping and poignant tale spans 30 profound years in the lives of the Chens. A trio of narrators take on the three roles, pulling you into each of their experiences with visceral empathy. Real Americans is an emotional listen, especially for anyone who’s ever felt lonely or misunderstood.