“Here is imperative reading: a vivid fictional exploration of what it means to belong and what it feels like when you don't. It’s a moving story of how a boy comes into his own when everything he loves is taken away, and how a mother learns to live with the mistakes of the past. Set in New York and China, The Leavers is a vivid examination of borders and belonging. Loving and selfish, determined and frightened, Polly is forced to make one heartwrenching choice after another. Told from the perspective of both Daniel-as he grows into a directionless young man-and Polly, Ko’s novel gives us one of fiction’s most singular mothers. But far from all he’s ever known, Daniel struggles to reconcile his adoptive parents’ desire that he assimilate with his memories of his mother and the community he left behind. Eventually adopted by a pair of well-meaning white professors, Deming is moved from the Bronx to a small town upstate and renamed Daniel Wilkinson. With his mother gone, eleven-year-old Deming is left mystified and bereft. One morning, Deming Guo’s mother, Polly, an undocumented Chinese immigrant, goes to her job at a nail salon-and never comes home. No one can find any trace of her. Lisa Ko’s powerful debut, The Leavers, is the winner of the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Fiction, awarded by Barbara Kingsolver for a novel that addresses issues of social justice.
“There was a time I would have called Lisa Ko’s novel beautifully written, ambitious, and moving, and all of that is true, but it’s more than that now: if you want to understand a forgotten and essential part of the world we live in, The Leavers is required reading.” -Ann Patchett, author of Commonwealth Named a Best Book of 2017 by NPR, Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed, Bustle, and Electric Literature FINALIST FOR THE 2017 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION
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