Homeseeking by Karissa Chen

From WWII to 2008, this deeply moving story follows one couple across sixty years as world events pull them together and apart, illuminating the Chinese diaspora and exploring what it means to find home far from your homeland.

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.

At once epic and intimate, Homeseeking is a story of family, sacrifice, and loyalty, and of the power of love to endure beyond distance, beyond time.

REVIEWS

“As I tearfully turned the last page of Homeseeking, I knew that it had earned a place on my top shelf. For Chen has finally put into words the lifelong grief I have carried as an immigrant — grief for a childhood, a place, a home that no longer exists…[Home] can also live on inside a book. Just as I did, many readers are bound to find their home within the pages of Chen’s unforgettable debut.”—Washington Post

“[A] sweeping, ambitious novel about the meaning of home and the power of memory.”—People

“[An] ambitious debut…This is a novel historical fiction mavens will adore, as its storytelling magic and emotional depth flow over a foundation of enlightening, critically important facts.”—Oprah Daily

PRODUCT DETAILS
Trade Paperback
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
ISBN: 978-0593712993
Pages: 512