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A Novel
by Weike Wang
From the award-winning author of Chemistry, a sharp-witted, insightful novel about a marriage as seen through the lens of two family vacations.
Keru and Nate are college sweethearts who marry despite their family differences: Keru's strict, Chinese, immigrant parents demand perfection ("To use a dishwasher is to admit defeat," says her father), while Nate's rural, white, working-class family distrusts his intellectual ambitions and his "foreign" wife.
Some years into their marriage, the couple invites their families on vacation. At a Cape Cod beach house, and later at a luxury Catskills bungalow, Keru, Nate, and their giant sheepdog navigate visits from in-laws and unexpected guests, all while wondering if they have what it takes to answer the big questions: How do you cope when your spouse and your family of origin clash? How many people (and dogs) make a family? And when the pack starts to disintegrate, what can you do to shepherd everyone back together?
With her "wry, wise, and simply spectacular" style (People) and "hilarious deadpan that recalls Gish Jen and Nora Ephron" (O, The Oprah Magazine), Weike Wang offers a portrait of family that is equally witty, incisive, and tender.
"Wonderfully acerbic…Wang excels at setting the tone with biting prose…and the scenes of family drama are compulsively readable. It's a tour de force." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Wang is an incisive writer with sharp psychological insight who does dialogue particularly well, revealing what is not said in conversation just as much as what is said out loud. This quietly engrossing novel is subtle and powerful in its cultural critique and will surely be relatable for anyone who has in-laws. A compelling portrait of family dynamics under pressure." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Wang uses sharp detail and gentle humor to portray the evolution of a thoughtful partnership." —Los Angeles Times
"Sharp, insightful, occasionally heartbreaking, and incredibly relatable." —Gabrielle Zevin, author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
"A sharp and affecting portrait of a couple navigating their hopes, anxieties, and families of origin over time, Rental House is sparkling with insight, its characters drawn with love and precision." —Lisa Ko, author of Memory Piece
"Funny and delightful, Rental House is a story for anyone who's experienced demanding parents, misunderstanding in-laws, a vacation-gone-wrong, or mid-life questions about how to reconcile your own personality liabilities with those of the person you love most." —Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot
This information about Rental House was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Weike Wang is the author of the novels Chemistry and Joan Is Okay. She is the recipient of a PEN/Hemingway Award and a Whiting Award and is a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree. She lives in New York City.
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by Stephanie Booth
Libby Lost and Found is a book for people who don't know who they are without the books they love.
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