Number One Chinese Restaurant

Li, Lillian

ISBN 10: 125014129X / ISBN 13: 9781250141293

Published by Henry Holt and Company, New York, New York, 2018

About this Item

This copy of "Number One Chinese Restaurant" has been SIGNED by Lillian Li on the title page! An exuberant and wise multigenerational debut novel about the complicated lives and loves of people working in everyone's favorite Chinese restaurant. Generous in spirit, unaffected in its intelligence, multivoiced, poignant, and darkly funny, "Number One Chinese Restaurant" looks beyond red tablecloths and silk-screen murals to share an unforgettable story about youth and aging, parents and children, and all the ways that our families destroy us while also keeping us grounded and alive.

Seller Inventory # 8700

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Number One Chinese Restaurant
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Company, New York, New York
• Publication Date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 125014129X
• ISBN 13: 9781250141293
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition/First Printing
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Asian-American Author
  • Modern First Editions
  • Debut

About this title

Synopsis

Named a Must-Read by TIME, Buzzfeed, The Wall Street Journal, Star Tribune, Fast Company, The Village Voice, Toronto Star, Fortune Magazine, InStyle, and O, The Oprah Magazine

"A joy to read―I couldn't get enough."
―Buzzfeed

"This novel practically thumps with heartache and sharp humor."
―Chang-rae Lee, New York Times bestselling author of Native Speaker

An exuberant and wise multigenerational debut novel about the complicated lives and loves of people working in everyone’s favorite Chinese restaurant.

The Beijing Duck House in Rockville, Maryland, is not only a beloved go-to setting for hunger pangs and celebrations; it is its own world, inhabited by waiters and kitchen staff who have been fighting, loving, and aging within its walls for decades. When disaster strikes, this working family’s controlled chaos is set loose, forcing each character to confront the conflicts that fast-paced restaurant life has kept at bay.

Owner Jimmy Han hopes to leave his late father’s homespun establishment for a fancier one. Jimmy’s older brother, Johnny, and Johnny’s daughter, Annie, ache to return to a time before a father’s absence and a teenager’s silence pushed them apart. Nan and Ah-Jack, longtime Duck House employees, are tempted to turn their thirty-year friendship into something else, even as Nan’s son, Pat, struggles to stay out of trouble. And when Pat and Annie, caught in a mix of youthful lust and boredom, find themselves in a dangerous game that implicates them in the Duck House tragedy, their families must decide how much they are willing to sacrifice to help their children.

Generous in spirit, unaffected in its intelligence, multi-voiced, poignant, and darkly funny, Number One Chinese Restaurant looks beyond red tablecloths and silkscreen murals to share an unforgettable story about youth and aging, parents and children, and all the ways that our families destroy us while also keeping us grounded and alive.

About the Author

Lillian Li received her BA from Princeton and her MFA from the University of Michigan. She is the recipient of a Hopwood Award in Short Fiction, as well as Glimmer Train’s New Writer Award. Her work has been featured in Guernica, Granta, and Jezebel. She is from the D.C. metro area and lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Number One Chinese Restaurant is her first novel.