The Family Chao, Lan Samantha Chang
The Family Chao, Lan Samantha Chang
4 Rating(s)
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
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The Family Chao

Author: Lan Samantha Chang

Narrator: Brian Nishii

Unabridged: 10 hr 57 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 02/01/2022


Synopsis

The residents of Haven, Wisconsin, have dined on the Fine Chao restaurant’s delicious Americanized Chinese food for thirty-five years, content to ignore any unsavory whispers about the family owners. Whether or not Big Leo Chao is
honest, or his wife, Winnie, is happy, their food tastes good and their three sons earned scholarships to respectable colleges. But when the brothers reunite in Haven, the Chao family’s secrets and simmering resentments erupt at last.

Before long, brash, charismatic, and tyrannical patriarch Leo is found dead—presumed murdered—and his sons find they’ve drawn the exacting gaze of the entire town. The ensuing trial brings to light potential motives for all three
brothers: Dagou, the restaurant’s reckless head chef; Ming, financially successful but personally tortured; and the youngest, gentle but lost college student James. As the spotlight on the brothers tightens—and the family dog meets an
unexpected fate—Dagou, Ming, and James must reckon with the legacy of their father’s outsized appetites and their own future survival.

Brimming with heartbreak, comedy, and suspense, The Family Chao offers a kaleidoscopic, highly entertaining portrait of a Chinese American family grappling with the dark undercurrents of a seemingly pleasant small town.

About Lan Samantha Chang

Lan Samantha Chang is the award-winning author of the collection Hunger and the novels The Family Chao; Inheritance; and All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost. A recent Berlin Prize Fellow, she also has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. Chang is the first Asian American and the first female director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She lives in Iowa City.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Rosh ~catching up slowly~ on February 09, 2022

In a Nutshell: Strongly mixed feelings. The adaptation from a classic is faithfully done, but those who don’t know the original might just be left furious at the stereotypical depiction of Chinese Americans. Story: Leo Chao has been running a restaurant serving Americanized-Chinese food in Haven, Wisc......more

Goodreads review by Bkwmlee on November 09, 2021

4.5 stars This one doesn’t publish until February 2022, but I received an advance copy early for review and I’m so glad I did, as I enjoyed it immensely. Supposedly this is a modern day retelling of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, but as I’ve never read that Russian classic, any parallels were l......more

Goodreads review by Nicole on January 28, 2022

I listened to the audiobook. It is supposed to be a reimagining of The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I thought it dragged a bit in the beginning. It was pretty much setting up the story. The action picked up the last half of the book. There narrator did a great job creating the different......more

Goodreads review by Jill on November 07, 2021

What an amazing reimagining of the Brothers Karamazov! Even though the brothers in question here are the three sons of Leo Chao, “the consummate American id, an insatiable narcissist, a shameless capitalist who wanted to screw everyone”, the framework of the classic Russian novel and its themes are......more

Goodreads review by Hannah on December 08, 2024

This book leaves me a bit speechless. I have a lot of complicated emotions tangled up between Americanism, racism, filial piety, what is family, who deserves what, the perfect crime, a deserving victim, xenophobia, stereotypes, sibling loyalty, and a thousand things that I'm not sure anyone who isn'......more