What The Zhang Boys Know

"What the Zhang Boys Know has a dozen chapters, each one a vivid short story in itself. Garstang makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts. The lives of the inhabitants of a condominium in Washington, D.C.'s Chinatown are told separately and as part of a web of entanglements. The entrances and exits are handled with the deftness of a French comedy, but the empathy of the author brings all the characters achingly alive. What the Zhang Boys Know is a wonderful and haunting book." - John Casey, author of Compass Rose and Spartina, winner of the National Book Award

A science nerd, Emma Sakamoto puts her skills to good use by putting together a manual for the girls at Minato High.

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOKS OF 2020 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST FOR THE 2020 CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE WINNER OF THE ROSENTHAL FAMILY FOUNDATION AWARD, FROM THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND LETTERS A NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION "5 UNDER 35" HONOREE NATIONAL BESTSELLER “Belongs on a shelf all of its own.” —NPR “Outstanding.” —The Washington Post “Revolutionary . . . A visionary addition to American literature.” —Star Tribune An electric debut novel set against the twilight of the American gold rush, two siblings are on the run in an unforgiving landscape—trying not just to survive but to find a home. Ba dies in the night; Ma is already gone. Newly orphaned children of immigrants, Lucy and Sam are suddenly alone in a land that refutes their existence. Fleeing the threats of their western mining town, they set off to bury their father in the only way that will set them free from their past. Along the way, they encounter giant buffalo bones, tiger paw prints, and the specters of a ravaged landscape as well as family secrets, sibling rivalry, and glimpses of a different kind of future. Both epic and intimate, blending Chinese symbolism and reimagined history with fiercely original language and storytelling, How Much of These Hills Is Gold is a haunting adventure story, an unforgettable sibling story, and the announcement of a stunning new voice in literature. On a broad level, it explores race in an expanding country and the question of where immigrants are allowed to belong. But page by page, it’s about the memories that bind and divide families, and the yearning for home.

"What Came Before is a remarkable achievement a smart, fast-paced mystery that asks important questions about identity, family, and race. And, like the best of its genre, itOs loaded with puzzles: What really happened on the day Abbie PalmerOs mother killed herself? Who is the mysterious woman who shows up on AbbieOs doorstep, and why would anyone want her dead? Gay DeganiOs prose is at all times lucid and compelling, and her exciting story will keep you glued to your chair." Clifford Garstang, winner of the 2013 Library of Virginia Award for Fiction for 'What the Zhang Boys Know' "With engaging characters and a compelling mystery, Gay DeganiOs What Came Before draws you in and doesnOt let go. If this had been a movie, I wouldnOt have left the cinema for more popcorn. A brilliant and complex whodunit with a memorable, imperfect character at its helm." Christopher Allen, author of 'Conversations with S. Teri OOType (a Satire)'

Finalist for 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction Longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction Finalist for the 2021 Aspen Words Literary Prize Mingling the earthy with the otherworldly, these ten stories chronicle ineffable events in ordinary lives. In Kenan’s fictional territory of Tims Creek, North Carolina, an old man rages in his nursing home, a parson beats up an adulterer, a rich man is haunted by a hog, and an elderly woman turns unwitting miracle worker. A retired plumber travels to Manhattan, where Billy Idol sweeps him into his entourage. An architect who lost his famous lover to AIDS reconnects with a high-school fling. Howard Hughes seeks out the woman who once cooked him butter beans. Shot through with humor and seasoned by inventiveness and maturity, Kenan riffs on appetites of all kinds, on the eerie persistence of history, and on unstoppable lovers and unexpected salvations. If I Had Two Wings is a rich chorus of voices and visions, dreams and prophecies, marked by physicality and spirit. Kenan’s prose is nothing short of wondrous.

Fiction. The author of the award-winning What the Zhang Boys Know ("...utterly beautiful and unforgettable"--Kevin Wilson) now gives us a heart-rending first novel about love, displacement, and the powerful ghosts that haunt so many families. The Alexanders have farmed the land in Turtle Valley for generations, and their family and its history is tied to this mountainous region of Virginia in ways few others can claim. When Gulf War veteran Aiken Alexander brings home a young and pregnant South Korean bride, he hopes at long last to claim his own place in that complicated history--coming out from behind the shadow of his tragically killed older brother and taking up a new place in his father's affections. However, things do not go according to plan. His wife, Soon-hee, can't--or won't--adjust to life in America. When Soon-hee disappears with their son, Aiken's life and dreams truly fall apart--he loses his job, is compelled to return to the family home, and falls prey to all his worst impulses. It is at this low point that Aiken's story becomes interwoven with a dubious Alexander family history, one that pitted brother against brother and now cousin against cousin, in a perfect storm of violence and dysfunction. Drawing on Korean beliefs in spirits and shamanism, how Aiken solves these problems--both corporeal and spiritual--is at the center of this dynamic and beautifully written debut novel.

This final novel in the acclaimed Seventh Flag Trilogy thrusts readers thirty years into the future—a dystopic reality of regional fiefdoms, marauding scavengers, and the quest for ultimate power: the Algorithms of everything, which have been secretly pilfered from an undersea Internet cable, stored on hard drives, and implanted in the last surviving blue whale. Ademar Zarkan—the iconic and unlikely heroine of the American West, now a seventy-year-old woman—leads the Free People of West Texas in an alliance with Native Americans and the indigenous people of northern Mexico to retrieve the hard drives and to rescue her clairvoyant granddaughter from the radicalized Sisterhood and its merciless leader, Mother. But they aren’t the only ones in pursuit of the Algorithms. Haunting and prophetic, Algorithms is a story of violent extremism, resilience, family, and, above all, the interconnectedness of humankind and the natural world.

Charlie Christmas, Ademar Zarkan, and Prometheus Stone are the best of America—united by war, scarred by displacement, and resolute in the face of the troubles that rip the nation apart over three decades. Christmas, a Somali translator with a split personality, and Zarkan, a Muslim sharpshooter who defies gender and religious constraints to graduate from West Point, are first brought together by Stone, a lapsed Jew and an Army captain, amidst war and famine in East Africa. Their ensuing journey—which takes them from the mean streets of Mogadishu to the high desert of West Texas, from the barren plains of Indian country to the rolling hills of Minnesota—is at turns tragic and uplifting. Charlie’s son, Amir, is the bookmark in their lives, and the struggle to raise him amid the predators of white supremacy and violent radicalism is their life’s work. With the help of Buck, the bomb-sniffing dog with a nose for danger, they prevail over Somali militias, pirates, white supremacists, and ISIS terrorists in a splintering world that has turned on itself like a serpent in the singularly obscene act of devouring its own tail. A sweeping novel that digs deep into the backstories of some of the beloved West Texas characters from Seventh Flag, Balman’s award-winning debut novel, Murmuration is a mesmerizing story of what it means to be American in the twenty-first century.