Boswell Book Company presents an evening with Rachel Khong, author of Real Americans. In conversation with Chris Lee of Boswell. Cosponsored by AAPI of Coalition of Wisconsin and OCA Wisconsin.
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, an easygoing and effortlessly attractive heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. 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?
From Brit Bennett: “Khong masterfully explores a family splintered by science, struggling to redefine their own lives after uncovering harrowing secrets. Real Americans is a mesmerizing multigenerational novel about privilege, identity and the illusions of the American dream.”
Rachel Khong is the author of Goodbye, Vitamin. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, The Paris Review, and more. In 2018, she founded The Ruby, a work and event space for women and nonbinary writers and artists in San Francisco’s Mission District.
Click here to order your copy of Real Americans from Boswell. Signed copies and personalization available on pre-orders. Please note that signed copies will not be shipped until after the event.
