Three generations of Chinese-American women in a San Francisco family must confront their past and carve out a future in this extraordinary novel, a “haunting” debut full of “shimmering and unforgettable” characters. (New York Times Book Review)

The Kong women are in crisis. A disastrous trip to visit her "home" orphanage in China has plunged eighteen-year-old Ari into a self-destructive spiral. Her adoptive mother, Charlie, a lawyer with a great heart, is desperate to keep her daughter safe. Meanwhile, Charlie must endure the prickly scrutiny of her beautiful, Bryn Mawr educated mother, Gran—who, as the daughter of a cultured Chinese doctor, came to America to survive Mao's Revolution—and her sister, Les, a brilliant judge with a penchant to rule over everyone's lives.

As they cope with Ari's journey of discovery and its aftermath, the Kong women will come face to face with the truths of their lives—four powerful intertwining stories of accomplishment, tenacity, secrets, loneliness, and love. Beautifully illuminating the bonds of family and blood, The Year She Left Us explores the promise and pain of adoption, the price of assimilation and achievement, the debt we owe to others, and what we owe ourselves.

An award-winning novel of urban boyhood: “No other . . . comes as close as this to

Catcher in the Rye

.” —

The Literary Review

A Man Booker Prize–winning author brings us inside the head of a young boy in a novel that offers a “splendid evocation of childhood in mid-20th-century Glasgow” (

The Washington Post

).   Here is the story of a boyhood in a large industrial city during a time of great social change. Kieron grows from age five to early adolescence amid the general trauma of everyday life—the death of a beloved grandparent, the move to a new home. A whole world is brilliantly realized: sectarian football matches; ferryboats on the river; the unfairness of being a younger brother; climbing drainpipes, trees, and roofs; dogs, cats, sex, and ghosts—all rendered in the unmistakable perspective of youth, offering “a vivid reminder that childhood is a foreign country” (

Kirkus Reviews

).   “A book full of the wonder of growing up . . . A magnificent and important novel.” —

Financial Times

  “Recalls the modernist experiments of Joyce and Woolf . . . Kelman is a writer of singular will and sincerity.” —

The New York Times Book Review

  “As an urban coming-of-age, the novel also reminded me of

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

 . . . This funny, sad and deeply entrancing novel works as dreams do: by seduction, by raising strange spirits, and by delivering a world entire. It represents a triumph for Kelman, as hard and uproarious as a Glasgow Saturday night.” —

The Washington Post

  “Kelman’s raw, blunt narration drives home all of Kieron’s loneliness, sadness and feelings of inadequacy. If you can roll with the Scots dialect, the narrative is rewarding, bleak and marvelous.” —

Publishers Weekly

“A globe-trotting, whirlwind, tragi-comic family saga that wrings tears from absurdity and laughter from loss.  A joy to read from start to finish.”   — Andrew Sean Greer, author of Less, winner of the 2018 Pulitzer Prize

The Nest meets Crazy Rich Asians in this sharp comedic novel about a Chinese-American family's attempts (or not) to fulfill its dying patriarch's final bequest.

Some of us are more equal than others....

Meet Stanley Huang: father, husband, ex-husband, man of unpredictable tastes and temper, aficionado of all-inclusive vacations and bargain luxury goods, newly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. For years, Stanley has claimed that he’s worth a small fortune. But the time is now coming when the details of his estate will finally be revealed, and Stanley’s family is nervous.

For his son Fred, the inheritance Stanley has long alluded to would soothe the pain caused by years of professional disappointment. By now, the Harvard Business School graduate had expected to be a financial tech god – not a minor investor at a middling corporate firm, where he isn’t even allowed to fly business class.

Stanley’s daughter, Kate, is a middle manager with one of Silicon Valley’s most prestigious tech companies. She manages the capricious demands of her world-famous boss and the needs of her two young children all while supporting her would-be entrepreneur husband (just until his startup gets off the ground, which will surely be soon). But lately, Kate has been sensing something amiss; just because you say you have it all, it doesn’t mean that you actually do.   

Stanley’s second wife, Mary Zhu, twenty-eight years his junior, has devoted herself to making her husband comfortable in every way—rubbing his feet, cooking his favorite dishes, massaging his ego.  But lately, her commitment has waned; caring for a dying old man is far more difficult than she expected.

Linda Liang, Stanley’s first wife, knows her ex better than anyone. She worked hard for decades to ensure their financial security, and is determined to see her children get their due. Single for nearly a decade, she might finally be ready for some romantic companionship. But where does a seventy-two year old Chinese woman in California go to find an appropriate boyfriend?

As Stanley’s death approaches, the Huangs are faced with unexpected challenges that upend them and eventually lead them to discover what they most value. A compelling tale of cultural expectations, career ambitions and our relationships with the people who know us best, Family Trust skewers the ambition and desires that drive Silicon Valley and draws a sharply loving portrait of modern American family life.

"[A] THOUGHTFUL AND HEARTFELT BOOK...A literary cri de coeur--a lament for literature and everything implicit in it."--The Washington PostIn our zeal to embrace the wonders of the electronic age, are we sacrificing our literary culture? Renowned critic Sven Birkerts believes the answer is an alarming yes. In The Gutenberg Elegies, he explores the impact of technology on the experience of reading. Drawing on his own passionate, lifelong love of books, Birkerts examines how literature intimately shapes and nourishes the inner life. What does it mean to "hear" a book on audiotape, decipher its words on a screen, or interact with it on CD-ROM? Are books as we know them dead?At once a celebration of the complex pleasures of reading and a boldly original challenge to the new information technologies, The Gutenberg Elegies is an essential volume for anyone who cares about the past and future of books."[A] wise and humane book....He is telling us, in short, nothing less than what reading means and why it matters."--The Boston Sunday Globe"Warmly elegiac...A candid and engaging autobiographical account sketches his own almost obsessive trajectory through avid childhood reading....This profoundly reflexive process is skillfully described."--The New York Times Book Review"Provocative...Compelling...Powerfully conveys why reading matters, why it is both a delight and a necessity."--The Harvard Review

SHORTLISTED FOR DUNDEE INTERNATIONAL BOOK PRIZE 2012

Fin McPhail is in deep trouble and Amsterdam isn’t helping.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The city had promised an escape from all of his problems back in Scotland. It was the perfect fresh start – well-paid job, luxury apartment in the canal district, sobriety and celibacy.

But everything changed when he went on a blind date with an unhinged sexologist, and now the city’s dark side is closing in on him.

To make matters more complicated, his old life is hurtling back towards him in the shape of a stag party – four nutters from his hometown in Scotland, including his future brother-in-law and the former school bully – will arrive in the city within hours.

Over the course of one chaotic weekend, Fin McPhail will come face-to-face with all of his demons.

Vividly cinematic, Amsterdam Rampant draws on a potent blend of modern culture (Pulp Fiction, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and the work of Donna Tartt and Iain Banks). A riotously entertaining novel exploring the neon shadows of Europe’s sin city, this 21st Century tale of sex, friendship, and coming to terms with the past will leave readers wanting more from Scotland’s newest literary star.