What We Were Promised
by Lucy Tan
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Pub Date Jul 10 2018 | Archive Date Jun 11 2019
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Description
After years of chasing the American dream, the Zhen family has moved back to China. Settling into a luxurious serviced apartment in Shanghai, Wei, Lina, and their daughter, Karen, join an elite community of Chinese-born, Western-educated professionals who have returned to a radically transformed city.
One morning, in the eighth tower of Lanson Suites, Lina discovers that a treasured ivory bracelet has gone missing. This incident sets off a wave of unease that ripples throughout the Zhen household. Wei, a marketing strategist, bows under the guilt of not having engaged in nobler work. Meanwhile, Lina, lonely in her new life of leisure, assumes the modern moniker taitai -a housewife who does no housework at all.
She is haunted by the circumstances surrounding her arranged marriage to Wei and her lingering feelings for his brother, Qiang. Sunny, the family's housekeeper, is a keen but silent observer of these tensions. An unmarried woman trying to carve a place for herself in society, she understands the power of well-kept secrets. When Qiang reappears in Shanghai after decades on the run with a local gang, the family must finally come to terms with the past and its indelible mark on their futures.
From a silk-producing village in rural China, up the corporate ladder in suburban America, and back again to the post-Maoist nouveaux riches of modern Shanghai, What We Were Promised explores the question of what we owe to our country, our families, and ourselves.
Advance Praise
“I read What We Were Promised in a state of enchantment, immediately drawn into the longings, secrets and very human foibles of its finely-drawn cast of characters. Both intimate and panoramic, Lucy Tan's debut is a revealing consideration of modern China as well as a thrilling discovery of the generations-long secrets between two families. Compassionate and heartbreaking, funny and wise, local and universal, What We Were Promised marks the arrival of an inspiring new voice.”
-Chloe Benjamin, author of The Immortalists
“What We Were Promised is like being let into the heads of the characters in a C-drama… From its first page the novel promises a mix of emotion and intellect, plot and cultural critique, and it delivers. These characters are deeply understood and deeply felt, and the conflicts they get themselves into will keep you up at night turning pages. By the end of What We Were Promised you will agree that the real promise belongs to its debut author. Put Lucy Tan on your literary radar now.”
- Matthew Salesses, author of The Hundred-Year Flood
“In What We Were Promised, Tan skillfully brings to life the issues of modern day China and Shanghai. It is an immigrant story but one that also delves into the subject of going back to one's homeland. Tan humanizes each and every one of her characters. There is also depth to how the stories of past and present are interwoven. As a reader I felt that I was in good hands.”
-Weike Wang, author of Chemistry
“What We Were Promised is a big beautiful novel. Lucy Tan’s dazzling debut grapples with the persistence of the past, the inevitability of the present, and the difficulty of balancing individuality with community.”
--Hannah Pittard, author of Visible Emipire and Listen to Me
"Lucy Tan brings to vibrant life the self-made, newly cosmopolitan Zhens, who have gone from the tea fields and silk factories of small town China to the luxury high rises of Shanghai in one generation. Abounding in insight and deftly told, What We Were Promised is a story both sweeping and intimate, as this most modern of families discovers they must confront their past in order to find their future. "
--Maggie Shipstead, author of Seating Arrangements and Astonish Me
Marketing Plan
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9780316437189 |
| PRICE | $26.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 336 |
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