New York City, 1999. Lily Chen is an unpaid intern, pursuing the American Dream, when she falls for a young financier and the life of luxury his vast fortune promises. Everything she wants seems to finally be within reach.

But deep down, she knows that her ambitious scientist mother, Mei, imagined so much more for her when she fled the unspoken horrors of Maos cultural revolution. Twenty years later, Lily is a single parent, estranged from her own family and increasingly isolated from her teenage son, Nick. Desperate to break free from their life on a remote island in Washington State, Nick strives to live better than the generation before him, unable to understand his mothers choices.

But when he looks into the past and is unexpectedly confronted by the ghosts of his grandmothers young life in 1960s China, he risks unsettling a legacy of family secrets passed on from mother, to daughter, to son. Following three generations of one Chinese American family, REAL AMERICANS is a mesmerising, multilayered family drama which explores the choices we make for ourselves, and for our children. Spanning decades and continents, it is a soaring, heartfelt story about fate, fortune, and what it means to belong.

Format: Paperback
Published: 2025
Publisher: Cornerstone
Pages: 416
Language: English
ISBN 10: 1804945366
ISBN 13: 9781804945360