Welcome to the virtual launch for MY GOOD SON on 6/9 at 6pm PST! I will be in conversation with a brilliant writer and dear friend Kaitlin Solimine. We will raffle off three gifts: a Booksmith gift certificate, a copy of MY GOOD SON, and a copy of EMPIRE OF GLASS. Please join us and enter to win. RSVP for free!
MY GOOD SON is the story about a Chinese father, Mr. Cai, who works as a tailor in Yangzhou, a provincial town. Mr. Cai wants his son Feng to become an engineer, but Feng has failed his college entrance exams four times, and this is his last chance. Meanwhile, a young American man named Jude comes to the tailor shop to have a vest made. Mr. Cai seizes the opportunity to ask Jude to be Feng’s financial sponsor, so that Feng can go to study at an American university. Of course, this plan backfires. Mr. Cai discovers that Jude is a gay man and needs help to come out to his estranged father.
Through writing about a father’s frustration, I learned much about parenting, its deep power and profound burden. For a year we have sheltered in place with our teenagers. Writing this book gives me a rare perspective that I wouldn’t have otherwise, so I was able to accept and appreciate my children, who are young men on their journeys into an uncertain world. I felt this book made me a wiser and less anxious parent.
New York Times Book Review says: "As with her previous books, ‘Living Treasures’ and ‘My Old Faithful,’ Huang’s latest explores the generational push-pull of family life in post-Tiananmen China . . . Mr. Cai remains front and center, always compelling, a man doing everything for his boy, the way a good father — supposedly — should.”
Ms. Magazine says, “A poignant meditation on fathers and sons, American and Chinese cultures and traditions in the face of modernity, Yang Huang’s latest novel is layered, evocative and engaging.”
I had an amazing conservation, which mentioned the anniversary of Tiananmen, with Rob Moore and Lee Moore, who were Chinese language and culture scholars. When I shared the Chinese Literature Podcast interview on 6/4/2021, it was promptly banned on WeChat. Censorship in action! This has been the political background of my fiction to this day. You see, I have not exaggerated a bit.
Now you have the pleasure to view MY GOOD SON Virtual Launch at Booksmith. Enjoy!
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