Jessica Hagedorn’s ferociously entertaining new novel, which opens with the tragic death of Romeo Byron, one of Hollywood’s hottest young actors, centers on two women who are neighbors in Manhattan’s West Village.  Mimi Smith, a filmmaker whose only screen credit is a low-budget slasher movie, finds herself in desperate need of resuscitation for both her career and downwardly-spiraling life.  Her neighbor, Eleanor Delacroix, is a legendary, scandalous literary figure, now nearing eighty and addicted to cocaine and gin.  Their personal and artistic lives begin to converge in unexpected ways as Eleanor grieves over the recent death of her long-time lover, the renowned painter Yvonne Wilder, and as Mimi confronts the challenges presented by the mysterious disappearance of her drug-dealing boyfriend, Bobby; by her newly sober if still somewhat loopy brother, Carmelo; and by her wayward fourteen-year-old daughter, Violet.

https://www.jessicahagedorn.net/toxicology

Fifteen-year old Megume wakes to find herself in the woods, with no idea of how she got there beyond a murky memory of chasing her lost dog, Sasurai. But with the pain of her past and her family fragmented after the death of her mother, Megume finds that she doesn't really mind being lost. Yet strange encounters with others in the woods - including Kat, a woman who seems stuck in the moment Pearl Harbor was bombed - and incidents that feel right out of fairytales and Japanese stories she heard as a child, combined with her own vivid dreams, leave Megume to sort out the difference between her own mind and reality, all while trying to navigate her way out of this deceptive forest. Shortlisted for a 2012 Lambda Literary Award in Debut Fiction.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/12924011


"A gay, punk-rock Chinese American in the age of AIDS, Chin confronts all manner of hypocrisy."—San Francisco Chronicle

Through intertwined short stories, 98 Wounds dissects the inexorable dualities present in every moment that matters: pleasure and pain, contentment and longing, mercy and brutality, living and dying. In between all this, solace, understanding, and occasional regret — if not resolution — can be found. 98 Wounds takes the reader on a defiant road trip beset with contrition potholes and agitation detours to a place where absurdity and horror feed on each other. In 98 Wounds, either we are all damned, or we are all saved: a sentiment that speaks to all cultures in these uncertain times.

Award-winning writer Justin Chin is the author of six books, including Bite Hard (Manic D Press) and Mongrel (St. Martin's Press). His works have been widely anthologized. Born in Malaysia, raised and educated in Singapore, shipped to the United States by way of Hawaii, he currently lives in San Francisco, California.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/13095895

A YOUNG FILIPINO AMERICAN’S RIOTOUS ADVENTURES THROUGH THE SPRAWLING, TRAGICOMIC LANDSCAPE OF MODERN-DAY MANILA.
After thirteen years of living in the U.S., Vince returns to his birthplace, the Philippines. As Vince ventures into the heat and chaos of the city, he encounters a motley cast of characters, including a renegade nun, a political film director, arrogant hustlers, and the country’s spotlight-driven First Daughter. Haunted by his childhood memories and a troubled family history, Vince unravels the turmoil, beauty, and despair of a life caught between a fractured past and a precarious future.

Witty and mesmerizing, this novel explores the complex colonial and cultural history of the Philippines and the paradoxes inherent in the search for both personal and national identities.

Leche includes 31 postcard images.

https://coffeehousepress.org/products/leche

After growing up in the most food-obsessed city in the world, Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan left home and family at eighteen for America–proof of the rebelliousness of daughters born in the Year of the Tiger. But as a thirtysomething fashion writer in New York, she felt the Singaporean dishes that defined her childhood beginning to call her back. Was it too late to learn the secrets of her grandmothers’ and aunties’ kitchens, as well as the tumultuous family history that had kept them hidden before In her quest to recreate the dishes of her native Singapore by cooking with her family, Tan learned not only cherished recipes but long-buried stories of past generations.

A Tiger in the Kitchen, which includes ten authentic recipes for Singaporean classics such as pineapple tarts and Teochew braised duck, is the charming, beautifully written story of a Chinese-Singaporean ex-pat who learns to infuse her New York lifestyle with the rich lessons of the Singaporean kitchen, ultimately reconnecting with her family and herself.

https://cheryllulientan.com/books/a-tiger-in-the-kitchen/

In her most powerful novel yet, acclaimed author Lisa See returns to the story of sisters Pearl and May from Shanghai Girls, and Pearl’s strong-willed nineteen-year-old daughter, Joy. Reeling from newly uncovered family secrets, Joy runs away to Shanghai in early 1957 to find her birth father—the artist Z.G. Li, with whom both May and Pearl were once in love. Dazzled by him, and blinded by idealism and defiance, Joy throws herself into the New Society of Red China, heedless of the dangers in the Communist regime. Devastated by Joy’s flight and terrified for her safety, Pearl is determined to save her daughter, no matter the personal cost. From the crowded city to remote villages, Pearl confronts old demons and almost insurmountable challenges as she follows Joy, hoping for reconciliation. Yet even as Joy’s and Pearl’s separate journeys converge, one of the most tragic episodes in China’s history threatens their very lives.
https://www.lisasee.com/books-new/dreams-of-joy/

“In this brave memoir, you will share in the celebration of a life, allowing us to experience her presence again. Full of courage and conviction, full of life.” (Richard Rhodes, from the Introduction) Ying-Ying Chang, mother of well-known American writer and journalist Iris Chang, is currently touring the United States and Canada promoting her book The Woman Who Could Not Forget: Iris Chang before and beyond The Rape of Nanking, a Memoir.
https://www.hoover.org/news/woman-who-could-not-forget-iris-chang-and-beyond-rape-nanking-memoir

In eight unforgettable sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces the picture brides’ extraordinary lives, from their arduous journey by boat, where they exchange photographs of their husbands, imagining uncertain futures in an unknown land; to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives; to their backbreaking work picking fruit in the fields and scrubbing the floors of white women; to their struggles to master a new language and a new culture; to their experiences in childbirth, and then as mothers, raising children who will ultimately reject their heritage and their history; to the deracinating arrival of war.

Julie Otsuka has written a spellbinding novel about identity and loyalty, and what it means to be an American in uncertain times.
https://www.julieotsuka.com/copy-of-when-the-emperor-was-divine


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