China Boy

"What a knockout. An incredibly rich and new voice or American literature... China Boy grabs the reader's heart and won't let go... A wonder of a story."--Amy Tan, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club

Kai Ting is the only American-born son of an aristocratic Mandarin family that fled China in the wake of Mao's revolution. Growing up in San Francisco's ghetto, Kai is caught between two worlds--embracing neither the Chinese nor the American way of life. After his mother's death, Kai is suddenly plunged into American culture by his new stepmother, a Philadelphia society woman who tries to erase every vestige of China from the household. Warm, funny, and deeply moving, China Boy is a brilliantly rendered novel of family relationships, culture shock, and the perils of growing up in an America of sharp differences and shared humanity.