Order Real Americans (April 30, 2024)
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A New York Times bestseller
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?
“While in many ways a far cry from Khong’s wonderfully spare debut, Goodbye Vitamin (2017), this plot-rich, spiraling, multigenerational epic possesses the same heartrending humanity and deceptively subtle portrayal of characters’ unseen depths—so impossible to relate, so essential to everything. As in life, the love is in the details.”
—Annie Bostrom, Booklist, starred review
“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.”
—Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half
“Real Americans is a grand novel that explores the American psyche, dramatizing the fundamental American belief in the ability to change the world and improve humanity. Rachel Khong shows infinite and colorful perceptions of the world, which are often leavened with wisdom. Besides being a page turner, this book is also an eye-opener, imaginative and exhilarating.”
—Ha Jin, author of Waiting
“Real Americans traverses time with verve and feeling. Khong captures how people can be strange to themselves, how bewilderment can be a site of creation (or change, or becoming).”
—Raven Leilani, author of Luster
“Gorgeous, heartfelt, soaring, philosophical and deft, Real Americans flips the multigenerational novel inside out. Fate, honesty, our bargains with life. You will keep turning it over and over in your mind.”
—Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less Is Lost
“Aglow with love in its many forms, suffused with questions of where—and to whom—we belong, Real Americans is a book of rare charm. Khong untangles the roots of family with a wry, tender attention that will leave readers as comforted as they are challenged.”
—C Pam Zhang, author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold and Land of Milk and Honey
“Rachel Khong’s gripping second novel explores how biology, our parents’ abstract hopes for us, sheer luck, and the forces of history itself make us who we are. Real Americans is both a tender story of the intimate relationships between people and a sharp examination of very big questions of ethics, politics, and fate.”
—Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind