Spotlight On: Real Americans by Rachel Khong
I know I was technically an adult when I wrote my first book, but Real Americans feels, to me, like the first book I’ve written as an adult. What I mean is that I worked at it diligently and devotedly. It felt more like a marriage—something I committed to, that I worked at—whereas Goodbye, Vitamin felt like flings, stolen moments. Even when I was at my busiest I made sure to carve out an hour in the mornings to write. On mornings I did the opening shift at The Ruby, I would make the communal pot of coffee, then place myself in the “podcast room” (this tiny dark closet hung with egg cartons and moving blankets) and write. For the first couple years, I only had those daily hours. And in the last years of writing the book it required more: three to four hours, artist residencies. I mean that in the best way, though. I got married a few months before Goodbye, Vitamin was released, and I think I learned a lot about writing a novel by being in my committed relationship. To both marriage and novel writing, there are challenges, annoyances and frustrations, but also really deep satisfaction, joy, belonging, intimacy, transcendence.
― Rachel Khong, The Rumpus
What booksellers are saying about Real Americans
- Rachel Khong has spun a tender and intimate multigenerational family portrait that’s simultaneously a trenchant commentary on the contemporary faces of manifest destiny and the American dream. Real Americans plays with language in delightful and provocative ways, with its multiple narrators unknowingly echoing each other, skipping back and forth through time, and at times swapping between first and second person. The result is a gorgeous novel that hits the reader in so many different ways, one of those rare books that makes you think as much as it makes you feel.
― Akil Guruparan, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia | BUY
- Basically I opened Rachel Khong’s Real Americans on a Friday afternoon and was annoyed with every distraction–feeding my baby, answering emails, sleeping!–until I closed it, finished, the following Sunday night. What do I love in a novel? Fascinating research, intergenerational conflict/questions/challenges, surprising plot twists, and exquisitely developed characters. Real Americans has it all.
― Laura Cotten, Thank You Books in Birmingham, Alabama | BUY
- There are moments in life when choices must be made and most make decisions to the best of their ability. Rachel Khong’s highly anticipated Real Americans tells the story of three generations whose crucial choices, made out of love and best intentions chart courses that are life-changing and at times hurtful. At once a cautionary tale on potential genetic editing as well as a grand family story contemplating what it means to truly be American, Real Americans is filled with characters who are almost too brave who deny their truth to protect others.A wholly original and utterly charming middle grade novel that will hit you right in the feels. It’s a got a little bit of a mystery, a family that’s lost its way, and a plucky typewriter who breaks the rules of his kind trying to help.
― Rachel Watkins, Avid Bookshop in Athens, Georgia | BUY
- What initially appears to be a modern-day fairytale – Chinese-American girl meets rich white boy and falls in love – quickly becomes so much more in this nuanced, multi-generational family saga. Spanning more than 60 years and two continents, and told from three distinctive viewpoints, Real Americans is a powerful novel that raises questions about wealth, ambition, love, genetic engineering, and to what extent it’s possible to shape someone else to be who you want them to be.
― Jude Burke-Lewis, Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi | BUY
About Rachel Khong
Rachel Khong is the author of Goodbye, Vitamin, winner of the California Book Award for First Fiction, and named a Best Book of the Year by NPR; O, The Oprah Magazine; Vogue; and Esquire. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Cut, The Guardian, The Paris Review, and Tin House. In 2018, she founded The Ruby, a work and event space for women and nonbinary writers and artists in San Francisco’s Mission District. She lives in California.
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