{"product_id":"little-gods-a-novel-isbn-9780062935960","title":"Little Gods: A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLONGLISTED FOR THE PEN\/OPEN BOOK AWARD\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e“Compellingly complex…Expands the future of the immigrant\u003cbr\u003enovel even as it holds us in uneasy thrall to the past.” – Gish Jen, \u003cem\u003eNew\u003cbr\u003eYork Times Book Review\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCombining the emotional resonance of \u003cem\u003eHome Fire\u003c\/em\u003e with the ambition and innovation of \u003cem\u003eAsymmetry,\u003c\/em\u003e a lyrical and thought-provoking debut novel that explores the complex web of grief, memory, time, physics, history, and selfhood in the immigrant experience, and the complicated bond between daughters and mothers. \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOn the night of June Fourth, a woman gives birth in a Beijing hospital alone. Thus begins the unraveling of Su Lan, a brilliant physicist who until this moment has successfully erased her past, fighting what she calls the mind’s arrow of time. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen Su Lan dies unexpectedly seventeen years later, it is her daughter Liya who inherits the silences and contradictions of her life. Liya, who grew up in America, takes her mother’s ashes to China—to her, an unknown country. In a territory inhabited by the ghosts of the living and the dead, Liya’s memories are joined by those of two others: Zhu Wen, the woman last to know Su Lan before she left China, and Yongzong, the father Liya has never known. In this way a portrait of Su Lan emerges: an ambitious scientist, an ambivalent mother, and a woman whose relationship to her own past shapes and ultimately unmakes Liya’s own sense of displacement.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA story of migrations literal and emotional, spanning time, space and class, \u003cem\u003eLittle Gods\u003c\/em\u003e is a sharp yet expansive exploration of the aftermath of unfulfilled dreams, an immigrant story in negative that grapples with our tenuous connections to memory, history, and self. \u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003e\"This stunning, lyrical debut marks Meng Jin as a literary force, and offers readers an opportunity to explore the intricate ways that grief, identity, sacrifice, and love all weave together to create a bond between mother and daughter.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eRefinery 29\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Jin’s richly textured, unsparing writing questions whether a self can exist unmarked by the past.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A haunting debut about memory, history, and who we truly are.”  - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePopsugar\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Weaving the past and present, \u003cem\u003eLittle Gods\u003c\/em\u003e is a haunting tale of love, ambition, and family.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eElectric Literature\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Time sustains and ultimately devastates a brilliant physicist in Meng Jin's ambitious, stomach-twisting debut, \u003cem\u003eLittle Gods\u003c\/em\u003e…Weaving intentionally (and effectively) through decades of China's past… \u003cem\u003eLittle Gods \u003c\/em\u003eis both imaginative and deeply rooted in reality.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eShelf Awareness\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  “Spectacular and emotionally polyphonic…That Jin has managed to craft such an intimate, emotionally complex story is an awesome achievement. That she managed to do it in her debut novel, doubly so.”   \u003cp\u003e - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eOmar El Akkad, BookPage (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Though it initially sounds like a quest narrative, \u003cem\u003eLittle Gods \u003c\/em\u003eproves to be much more as it wrestles with grief, immigration and the durability of memory.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTime.com\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Artfully composed and emotionally searing, Jin’s debut about lost girls, bottomless ambition, and the myriad ways family members can hurt and betray one another is gripping from beginning to end. This is a beautiful, intensely moving debut.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Jin's debut is at heart a mystery, as a young Chinese American woman returns to China to try to understand her recently deceased mother's decisions and to find her biological father… Su Lan is a fascinating character of a type rarely seen in fiction, an ambitious woman whose intellect and drive allow her to envision changing the very nature of time.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"If the mark of a good novel is its ability to delicately rewire the reader’s brain, then Meng Jin has given us a very good novel....\u003cem\u003e\u003cu\u003eLittle Gods\u003c\/u\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e is a page-turner—but all the while it winks, reminding us that possible explanations in our universe are as varied as the beings who populate it.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Paris Review, Staff Pick\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Enthralling.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eGuardian\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"An intelligent, somewhat restrained look at the effects that tectonic political shifts have on ordinary citizens, effects that reverberate across the decades, and for its young American protagonist, even across oceans.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\"Little Gods\u003c\/em\u003e is built from familiar tropes: love amid violence, lost parents, secrets held by those closest to us. But Jin brings a fresh imagination to them, thoughtfully leveraging the language of physics without making the narrative cold or overladen. Her ultimate principle is simple and effective: How do we preserve love in the face of the forces that threaten it?\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eUSA Today\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Reminiscent of Ferrante...are Jin’s protagonist’s larger-than-life talent, drive and perversity. In her intelligence, vulnerability, volatility, desperation, narcissism and self-destructiveness, Su Lan — despite her voicelessness — is as complex a protagonist as any I can recall....\u003cem\u003eLittle Gods\u003c\/em\u003e expands the future of the immigrant novel.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Ambitious [and] formally complex...a powerful, poignant portrait of a woman crippled by her fear of looking back.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Jin treads purposefully over a vast landscape of difficult subjects – aging, class anxiety, political instability, intellectual insecurity, racism, migration – unflinchingly deconstructing and then moving beyond each. It is that willingness to follow such threads to their full conclusion...which gives “Little Gods” its greatest strength.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eChristian Science Monitor\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Steeped in trauma, loss, and imperfect love, \u003cem\u003eLittle Gods\u003c\/em\u003e is a novel about performing the self, filtered through academia, abandonment, and migration.... Smart and emotionally devastating.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eNPR.org\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Meng Jin’s beautiful debut novel is ambitious in the best ways: meticulously observed, daringly imagined, rich in character and history. Ranging across continents, cultures and generations, Jin poses profound questions: how might we know ourselves, or the people we love? And what truths, if any, travel with us?”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eClaire Messud\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A powerful story about family, immigration and the things we inherit along the way. Meng Jin writes beautifully on the mysteries of the past, both politically and personally, both as a universal burden to be carried collectively and as a conveyance for our individual liberation...Stunning.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSaïd Sayrafiezadeh, author of Brief Encounters with the Enemy\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“A brilliant debut—intellectually bold but with a startling emotional core, Meng Jin’s \u003cem\u003eLittle Gods\u003c\/em\u003e is a huge pleasure. Watch out: this writer’s career has just begun. What delights above all is literary ambition: Meng Jin’s gift merges science, politics and art: the kind of audacity our world needs now.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eGina Apostol\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Skillfully revealed, exquisitely rendered.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Brilliant....Elegantly written, emotionally compelling, and thought provoking on every page.” - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Millions\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mariner Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44889390022885,"sku":"NP9780062935960","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780062935960.jpg?v=1730231144","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/little-gods-a-novel-isbn-9780062935960","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}