First published 2021
Chuck runs a donut shop in California while his teenage employees gossip and scheme around him. His customers include families still carrying trauma from the Khmer Rouge genocide, their American-born children forging new identities far from their parents' homeland. A badminton coach who owns a struggling grocery store challenges a talented high school player, desperate to reclaim his former athletic glory. Two brothers stumble through a wedding afterparty, plotting to expose their uncle's disrespect toward the newlyweds. A tech entrepreneur develops an app for marginalized communities while pursuing a younger teacher obsessed with classic literature. A nine-year-old boy discovers his mother survived a school shooting motivated by racial hatred. These Cambodian American characters move between comedy and heartbreak as they wrestle with inherited trauma, sexual identity, family loyalty, and racial belonging in contemporary America.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family
Setting: California
Period: contemporary
262 pages · Hardcover · Ecco
Content warnings: racism