The Family Chao

Description

For years, the residents of Lake Haven, Wisconsin ignored the whispered troubles about the Chao family, if only to keep eating at the best restaurant in town. But when tyrannical patriarch Big Chao is found frozen to death in the family's meat freezer, scandalous events force the community to turn its attention to the three Chao sons. DAGOU, presupposed heir to the business. MING, successful banker, determined to sever ties with Haven's Asian community once and for all. JAMES, naive college student, who is only just learning of his family's past. As the family's dog mysteriously disappears, and Dagou "Dog Eater" Chao is held on trial for his father's murder, the Chaos' turbulent history spills into the public eye while a small town looks on in disbelief...

LAN SAMANTHA CHANG is the author of the award-winning Hunger and Inheritance, and All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost. Her work has been translated into nine languages and has been chosen twice for The Best American Short Stories. A recent Berlin Prize winner, she has received creative writing fellowships from Stanford University, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Samantha lives in Iowa City, where she is the director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

'Chang's prose moves with the unfussy ease of a shark through water - for the longest time you are just enjoying your swim, soaking up the story. Only midway through the book does it occur to you that a master hunter is at work: a writer cutting through the darker depths of what it means to be treated as an outsider in America' - The Guardian 'Scathing and hilarious, the rollicking tale considers the thorny themes of assimilation, identity, pride, filial piety, transracial adoption, and interracial relationships... you'll never look at Chinese restaurant families the same' - Vogue '[An] entertaining portrait of a clusterf**k Chinese-American family... a memorable expose of the dark undercurrents of small-town morality' - The Independent 'An insightful comedy of the American immigrant experience, and of a small town's inner workings' - John Irving 'A very smart novel about family, immigration, delicious food, and brutal Midwestern winters AND a modern retelling of The Brothers Karamazov (!)' - Curtis Sittenfeld (via Twitter)