Overview
A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK " Homeseeking is about the love of home and family, even against unimaginable circumstances...[A] sweeping epic." -- Good Housekeeping "Fans of historical fiction will want to pick up this exceptional novel immediately." -- Los Angeles Times 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.
Professional Reviews
"Karissa Chen''s debut novel weaves expertly between present and past, telling the story of childhood sweethearts who meet again late in life and are torn between looking back and moving on. A kaleidoscopic yet intimate view of the Chinese diaspora, HOMESEEKING explores how identities flex and and transform during war--and which fundamental parts of us remain the same no matter where we find ourselves." - Celeste Ng, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere
"Epic, assured, and beautifully drawn, HOMESEEKING is a love story that reveals the effects of war and history on the lives of individuals. Karissa Chen has created a world that''s deeply absorbing, following Suchi and Haiwen across decades, borders, and lifetimes."
-- Lisa Ko, author of National Book Award finalist The Leavers
"An absolute stunner of a debut. Chen nimbly tackles too often overlooked history in an exploration of surviving the trauma of war and loss of home. Homeseeking is a novel that asks if those who survive by moving forward and those who sustain by looking back can ever truly meet. At its heart, this is an impressive work of language, place, history, and all the tenuous ties that define who we are. Karissa Chen has created an elegant saga of soul and history, and proven herself a writer to watch."
-- Erika Swyler, national bestselling author of The Book of Speculation
"Sweeping, epic, yet deeply intimate, Homeseeking traces a pair of first loves and the gossamer thread that binds them across six decades and four nations as the world splits them apart, again and again. A spellbinding meditation on family, immigration, and the many faces of courage in times of hardship, this is a dazzling debut."
-- Kirstin Chen, New York Times bestselling author of Counterfeit
"In Homeseeking , Karissa Chen brings a rare delicacy to the pain of history, exploring what it means for generations to be simultaneously imprisoned by and separated from the past. Her characters linger with desperate vividness in each other''s memories--as they long will in her readers'' imaginations."
-- Elizabeth Kostova, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Historian, The Swan Thieves, and The Shadow Land
"A tender and captivating story about fate and loss, hope and love, expertly intertwined with modern Chinese history. Uniquely told through two lovers whose perspectives begin at opposite ends of their timelines, Karissa Chen''s beautiful debut will take your heart on a journey!"
-- Eve J. Chung, USA Today bestselling author of Daughters of Shandong
"Karissa Chen is a brilliant and patient storyteller, weaving the entwined histories of two unforgettable characters separated and reunited across time and distance in this tender, riveting novel. Chen''s lush descriptions and rich historical details offer much for readers to see and hear and imagine as we follow Suchi and Haiwen from their Shanghai neighborhood to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Los Angeles. A sweeping, poignant work of history, memory, and survival, Homeseeking is an enduring love story and a debut to treasure."
-- Nicole Chung, author of A Living Remedy
"Through its glittering and heartrending depictions of war, forced movement, broken love stories, and the tumultuous Chinese-Taiwanese 20th century, this spellbinding debut ingeniously captures the paradox of the immigrant experience: doggedly looking forward while uncontrollably looking back."
-- Juliet Grames, author of The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna
" Homeseeking is a perfect love song, beautiful and poignant and tender and sad. A tour de force of storytelling and a book with real faith in the human heart, with all its immense capacity for both love and hatred. Read it. It will make time stand still. Karissa Chen is the writer we''ve been waiting for, and Homeseeking is a must read."
-- Matthew Salesses, author of The Sense of Wonder
