Deceit and Other Possibilities (Hua)

Deceit and Other Possibilities:  Stories
Vanessa Hua, 2016
Willow Books/Aquarius Press
150 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780997199628


Summary
In this powerful debut collection, Vanessa Hua gives voice to immigrant families navigating a new America. Tied to their ancestral and adopted homelands in ways unimaginable in generations past, these memorable characters straddle both worlds but belong to none.

These stories shine a light on immigrant families navigating a new America, straddling cultures and continents, veering between dream and disappointment.

From a Hong Kong movie idol fleeing a sex scandal, to an obedient daughter turned Stanford pretender, from a Chinatown elder summoned to his village, to a Korean-American pastor with a secret agenda, the characters in the collection illustrate the conflict between self and society, tradition and change.

In "What We Have is What We Need," winner of The Atlantic student fiction prize, a boy from Mexico reunites with his parents in San Francisco. When he suspects his mother has found love elsewhere, he fights to keep his family together.

With insight and wit, she writes about what wounds us and what we must survive. Deceit and Other Possibilities marks the emergence of a remarkable new writer. (From the publisher.)