Ada Zhang

Set in China and America, in the generations after the Cultural Revolution, The Sorrows of Others is a dazzling collection about people confronted with being outsiders--as immigrants, as revolutionaries, and even, often, within their own families. In New York City, an art student finds an unexpected subject when she moves in with a grandmother from Xi'an, and boundaries are put into question. When a newlywed couple moves to Arizona, adapting to unfamiliar customs keeps their marriage from falling apart. A woman grapples with what it means to care for another, and the limits of that care, when her dying husband returns from Beijing years after abandoning her. And during a rainy summer in Texas, a visitor exposes the unspoken but unburiable history that binds two families together. Ada Zhang writes with startling honesty and love about lives young and old, in a stunning debut that explores what happens when we leave home and what happens when we stay, and the selves we meet and shed in the process of becoming.

The Sorrows of Others

Ani Velasquez

You seem to associate things a lot with emotions. Talking about liking this and missing that. It's just work. I do what I have to do to the best of my ability. It doesn't bring me great anguish, nor great joy. It's a livelihood. It's not love. Then when it's time to move on, move on.

"People leave home seeking change," she had said, when he'd asked why she never left. "But to me, home is where you experience the most change, should life bid you stay. People go, new people come. Buildings are demolished and rebuilt, or abandoned. Children grow up. The truest change, the kind that changes you, happens when you don't choose it."

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