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Homeseeking by Karissa Chen

Literary fiction

Homeseeking

Debut

We love supporting debut authors. Congrats, Karissa Chen, on your first book!

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This is an early release that's only available to our members—the rest of the world has to wait to read it.

by Karissa Chen

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Quick take

This profound saga follows one couple’s love and heartbreak, sprawling across sixty years and thousands of miles.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Emotional

    Emotional

  • Illustrated icon, 400

    400+ pages

  • Illustrated icon, Nonlinear_Timeline

    Nonlinear timeline

  • Illustrated icon, Immigration

    Immigration

Synopsis

A single choice can define an entire life.

Haiwen is buying bananas at a 99 Ranch Market in Los Angeles when he looks up and sees Suchi, his Suchi, for the first time in sixty years. To recently widowed Haiwen it feels like a second chance, but Suchi has only survived by refusing to look back.

Suchi was seven when she first met Haiwen in their Shanghai neighborhood, drawn by the sound of his violin. Their childhood friendship blossomed into soul-deep love, but when Haiwen secretly enlisted in the Nationalist army in 1947 to save his brother from the draft, she was left with just his violin and a note: Forgive me.

Homeseeking follows the separated lovers through six decades of tumultuous Chinese history as war, famine, and opportunity take them separately to the song halls of Hong Kong, the military encampments of Taiwan, the bustling streets of New York, and sunny California, telling Haiwen’s story from the present to the past while tracing Suchi’s from her childhood to the present, meeting in the crucible of their lives. Throughout, Haiwen holds his memories close while Suchi forces herself to look only forward, neither losing sight of the home they hold in their hearts.

Content warning

This book contains scenes that depict sexual assault and mentions of suicidal ideation and miscarriage.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of Homeseeking.

Homeseeking

APRIL 1947

Shanghai

In the last violet minutes of the disappearing night, the longtang wakes.

The neighborhood’s familiar symphony opens with the nightsoil man’s arrival: the trundle of his cart on the uneven road, the chime of his bell. With a slurry and a swish, he empties the latrines left in front of uniform doors and sings a parting refrain. In his wake, stairs and hinges creak; women peek out into the alleyway to claim their overturned night stools. Crouching, they clean silt from the wooden buckets: bamboo sticks clock, clamshells rattle, water from back-door faucets glugs and splatters. By the time they have finished, the sugar porridge vendor has emerged, announcing her goods in repetitive singsong as she pushes her cart. Later, the others will join her: the tea egg man, the pear syrup candy peddler, the vegetable and rice sellers, each with their own seasoned melodies. But for now, it is her lone call that drifts through the lanes of Sifo Li.

She passes the Zhang family shikumen, the sixth row house along this perimeter. Inside, on the second floor, sixteen-year-​­old Suchi sleeps fitfully after hours of weeping, her slender limbs twisted around the thin cotton sheet, her sweat seeping into the mattress. She is mired in a nightmare in which Haiwen no longer recognizes her. A delicate crust of dried tears rims her lashes.

Next to her is the older Zhang daughter, Sulan, who snuck back home only an hour earlier. Her skin is sticky with the smell of smoke and alcohol and sweat. She sleeps peacefully, dreaming of dancing in a beautiful dress of plum taffeta and silk, arm in arm with her best friend, Yizhen.

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Why I love it

I am a firm believer that books are best enjoyed on a comfy couch, accompanied by tea. So, when I found that I couldn’t help but open Homeseeking on the subway, desperate to see how the pieces of the novel would come together, I knew it was an exceptional read. Homeseeking is delicate, grand, and harmonious. I never wanted it to end and, immediately after I finished the book, I wished I could read it again for the first time.

People say that first loves always linger. That is certainly the case for Suchi and Haiwen. They strike up a friendship in their first grade class in Shanghai and spend their teenage years plotting the rest of their lives together. But as China descends deeper into war, Haiwen leaves Suchi behind to enlist. The invisible string connecting them seemingly breaks that day, but, sixty years later, it brings Suchi and Haiwen back together in a LA grocery store.

Homeseeking covers vast territory, transporting us from Asia to the United States over the span of decades. It is also a vulnerable account of two intertwined lives, exploring how we find comfort in places, people, ourselves, and our stories. I can say with certainty that I found a little slice of home in this book. Like Suchi and Haiwen’s relationship, it is a story that will stay with me for a very long time.

Member ratings (146)

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Literary fiction
View all
Intermezzo
The Book of George
Real Americans
Dirty Diana
Wellness
Margo’s Got Money Troubles
The God of the Woods
Same As It Ever Was
Annie Bot
Bear
Mercury
True Biz
Family Happiness
The Husbands
The Lady Waiting
The Other Valley
Hard by a Great Forest
Good Material
The Bullet Swallower
Happy All the Time
Rental House
Alice Sadie Celine
Let Us Descend
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Shark Heart
Homeseeking
Transcendent Kingdom
Hello Beautiful
Dominicana
What's Mine and Yours
The Unsettled
Ask Again, Yes
Vladimir
Infinite Country
The Prophets
Normal People
The Verifiers
Salvage the Bones
The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
I Have Some Questions for You
Black Buck
The History of Love
Age of Vice
Paper Names
The Light Pirate
The Secret History
The Kite Runner
Memorial
The Half Moon
Happiness Falls
The Gifted School
The Death of Vivek Oji
The Knockout Queen
Little Monsters
Yerba Buena
Beautiful World, Where Are You
Free Food for Millionaires
A Burning
The Mothers
The Water Dancer
Small Country
The Sympathizer
Fleishman Is in Trouble
Lot
An American Marriage
The Animators
The Mars Room
Exit West
White Fur
Woman No. 17
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
Eat Only When You're Hungry
Rainbirds
A Ladder to the Sky
Golden Child
The Goldfinch
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P
& Sons
The Association of Small Bombs
Lolly Willowes
All Grown Up
Marlena
Signal Fires
Someday, Maybe
Woman of Light
Marrying the Ketchups
The Shards