Alexandra Chang

A playful and deeply affective short story collection about the histories, technologies, and generational divides that shape our relationships—from the award-winning writer of Days of Distraction Compelling and perceptive, Tomb Sweeping probes the loyalties we hold: to relatives, to strangers, and to ourselves. In stories set across the US and Asia, Alexandra Chang immerses us in the lives of immigrant families, grocery store employees, expecting parents, and guileless lab assistants. A woman known only to her neighbors as “the Asian recycling lady” collects bottles from the streets she calls home. A young college grad ponders the void left from a broken friendship. An unfulfilled housewife in Shanghai finds a secret outlet for her ambitions in an undercover gambling den. Two strangers become something more through the bond of mistaken identity. These characters, adeptly attuned to the mystery of living, invite us to consider whether it is possible for anyone to entirely do right by another. Tomb Sweeping brims with remarkable skill and talent in every story, keeping a definitive pulse on loss, community, and what it means to feel fully alive. With her debut story collection, Chang further establishes herself as “a writer to watch” (New York Times Book Review).

Stories

Tomb Sweeping

“It seems, in this case, he who grows up without want has the luxury of satisfaction. She who grows up wanting is never satiated.” 

“Not from being apart from him, but from being alone with herself again.” 

“At every moment I’ve been told what I can and cannot do, and still—in spite of what my parents say, in spite of what my husband says, in spite of what the very law says—I have lived, and so what, so what if it was illegal, the money I made, it was mine, and how many people can say that for themselves, isn’t this what everyone wants, to have done something all their own, not for anything or anyone else, not for Wei He, not for Liu Zheng, not for Mama and Baba, but for me, only for me, how many people—

“And here he is, still working in a grocery store, still in the same town, hanging out with Dustin and Ollie, still doing the same shit.” 

“I can’t think of another friendship like the one I had with Klara, and I haven’t felt so deeply for a friend since. Sometimes I wonder if Klara knew me better than my boyfriend knows me now.” 

“My daughter. You’re all grown up now,” he says. “I know I haven’t always been the best dad, but I always do what I say, don’t I?” 

“They are both older. He could stay, he could live in her homes he could exist in this place.” 

“You and Didi will hate me if I make him leave. You think it’s my job to take care of him, even though we’re divorced.”

“I have never felt more seen and supported than by my algo.” 

“Then I realized I’ve been self-absorbed, that our relationship has been incredibly one-sided. How could I be so selfish?” 

Tomb Sweeping quotes

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