And then it’s Ava who’s cackling, toasting her friend, and then toasting this mad and maddening country of theirs.
At first, she’d tried to discourage Winnie from coming back. It seemed safer, less complicated for her to remain outside the US in Geneva, say, or Buenos Aires, or Mexico City. There was no reason for them to be in the same place. But when Winnie called to say she’d found this house, Ava knew it could be no other way. Winnie loved Boss Mak—Ava has never doubted that—but she loved America more. This was where she belonged, with the weirdest of the weird and the boldest of the bold. Winnie’s the one who showed Ava her country for what it truly is: a wildfire, a head-on collision, a spooked horse that’s thrown off its rider, a motherfucking driverless car. It’s the only place for freaks like them, hucksters, con men, unicorns, queens. Winnie is the American dream, and that’s what drives everyone mad, mad, mad—that she had the gall to crash their game and win it all.
Now it’s Winnie’s turn to wonder what Ava finds so funny.
The laughter empties out of her, but Ava is filled to the brim. “That we did it,” she says. “That we won the whole damn thing.”
They clink glasses, drain their wine, and get down to business.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Michelle Brower, Jessica Williams, Danya Kukafka, Ore Agbaje-Williams, Julia Elliott, Allison Warren, and everyone
at Aevitas Creative Management, William Morrow, and The Borough Press. To Kim Liao, Beth Nguyen, Reese Kwon, and Aimee Phan.
To the National Arts Council of Singapore, the Creative Writing Programme at Nanyang Technological University, and the Toji
Cultural Center. To the many books that helped me complete this novel, especially Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster by Dana Thomas, Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang, and Blood Profits: How American Consumers Unwittingly Fund Terrorists by Vanessa Neumann. To Kathy Shih, Stephen Lin, and the late Yvonne Chua. To Nelson Luo, Eric Zhou, Shirley Nie, and everyone
at Sitoy Group. To trusted early reader and all-around sounding board Vanessa Hua. To Matthew Salesses, my guiding light.
To my parents and my family. And, always, to Asmin.
About the Author
KIRSTIN CHEN is the author of Soy Sauce for Beginners and Bury What We Cannot Take. Born and raised in Singapore, she currently lives in San Francisco.
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