Shanghailanders
A Novel
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3.9 • 14 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Longlisted for the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction * Time 100 Must-Read Books of 2024 * The New York Times Editors’ Choice
“A thrilling, futuristic family drama that captures the joys, disappointments, and inside jokes of one Shanghai family in reverse chronological order. . . . By giving readers the gift of hindsight, Min shows how one enigmatic family falls apart and comes back together over several decades.”—Time
From a wise observer “of the ever-complicated matters of the heart” (Kirstin Chen) comes an unforgettable debut novel about a changing family in a changing world.
To the outside world, Leo and Eko Yang and their three charming daughters seem to have it all—wealth, beauty, and brains to match. They live in the privileged world of international Shanghai while jet-setting to their secondary homes in France, Japan, and the United States.
But Leo and Eko are at a crossroads. Their daughters are almost grown. Leo is nearing the end of a wildly successful career in Shanghai real estate, while Eko’s reach as an artist is only growing. After twenty-five years, what are the bonds keeping them together? What are the foundations of a family?
Beginning in the year 2040 and moving backward through the present to 2014, Shanghailanders takes readers into the world of each of the Yangs, as well as the people in their orbit—a nanny from the provinces, a private driver with a penchant for danger, and a grandmother whose memories of the past echo the present. Along the way, Juli Min shows how a family makes and remakes itself over the years: what unites us and slowly drives us apart.
Gorgeously written and brilliantly constructed, Shanghailanders is the introduction of a major new literary talent.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Min's assured debut, told in reverse chronology, follows a wealthy Shanghai family from 2040 to 2014. Real estate investor Leo Yang stays behind in Shanghai as his wife, Eko, travels with their two oldest daughters, Yumi and Yoko, to the U.S. When Yoko confesses her pregnancy to Eko, the two secretly reroute to Paris for an abortion, which is now illegal in America. One year earlier, their youngest daughter, Kiko, works as an escort, and in 2034, Leo, who has episodes of "manic paranoia" fueled by apocalyptic fears, forces the family to practice survival skills on a farm outside town. Other episodes depict a 2028 princess party for Kiko, and Leo's tentative start at building his fortune in 2014, the year he and Eko marry. Though the main characters are somewhat underdeveloped, Min casts a sharper eye on the family's employees, especially their nanny, who must come to terms with the fact that the bond she feels with the children is not mutual. Though the disparate threads don't quite cohere, they credibly reflect the messiness of family. Min is a writer worth keeping tabs on.
