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From the award-winning author of Goodbye, Vitamin: How far would you go to shape your own destiny? An exhilarating novel of American identity that spans three generations in one family and asks: What makes us who we are? And how inevitable are our futures?
Real Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster, and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn't be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao's Cultural Revolution. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love.
In 2021, fifteen-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated Washington island where he lives with his single mother, Lily. He can't shake the sense she's hiding something. When Nick sets out to find his biological father, the journey threatens to raise more questions than it provides answers.
In immersive, moving prose, Rachel Khong weaves a profound tale of class and striving, race and visibility, and family and inheritance—a story of trust, forgiveness, and finally coming home.
Exuberant and explosive, Real Americans is a social novel par excellence that asks: Are we destined, or made? And if we are made, who gets to do the making? Can our genetic past be overcome?
B E I J I N G , 1 9 6 6
She isn't afraid, but he is. They stand, in the darkness, before a glass case of old things. A Ming dynasty inkstone. A chrysanthemum carved from horn. A Song painting stamped with ruby-red collector's seals. And on a silk pillow, so slight it could be missed: an ancient lotus seed with a legend behind it.
The story goes like this: One night, long ago, a dragon emerged from the sky and dropped this seed into the emperor's open hand. His advisors huddled near to examine it. What fortune! they remarked. This seed would grant the emperor his greatest wish. Unfortunately, he died that night, while contemplating his options. He might have asked for immortality.
She takes a hammer from her knapsack. With all her strength, she strikes the glass. It makes a beautifully clear sound as it shatters. Quickly, the two get to work, securing the relics. It is an attempt to spare them from the Red Guards' destruction—an act of protest, small, against a movement she's no match for.
The seed is unspectacular, so old it resembles a stone. Yet she's aware it contains an entire future: roots, stems, leaves, blooms, to seeds once more—encoded, like she is. Her heart pumps blood, her lungs take in air, she sleeps, wakes, eats, excretes. Will her life be long or short? What has she chosen, she wonders, and what has chosen her? She likes the fragrance of gardenias, but not the scent of lipstick. She doesn't mind the rain. She is in love, which feels, to her, at once easy and hard, elemental and ungraspable—like vanishing and eternity at the same time. She wants to ask of every person she meets: Is it this way for you?
"Hurry," her companion says.
A door slams, loudly. Someone is here. The footsteps draw closer. They flee.
Outside, she opens her fist. On her bleeding palm rests a stolen seed. The story is fiction. And yet: Why shouldn't the wish be hers?
* * *
PART ONE
Lily
C H A P T E R 1
1999
My alarm rang at seven and I pressed snooze as usual. The second time I awoke, it was still seven. This happened occasionally, these blips in my existence. I got blank stares whenever I tried explaining them, so I didn't anymore. The feeling I had was that time wouldn't move. A second would refuse to pass as it usually did, and I would find myself trapped in a moment—unable to progress beyond a minute or two.
My bathroom mirror, flecked white with toothpaste, reflected me to myself. Lines from the pillow were pressed into my cheek. I ran my fingers over the indentations. The toothpaste flecks gave the effect of being in a shaken snow globe.
In the kitchen, the same drain flies circled the sink, unless they were new ones—the former ones' progeny. Debbie never washed her dishes, and her lipstick-rimmed mug sat balanced on the edge of the sink, like a dare to raise the issue. Warily, I ate a piece of toast with blueberry jam. The toast crunched as it always had. Some jam got on my cheek, and in swiping it from my face I removed some blush. Now there was a void in my coloring. I would have to redo the makeup, but it relieved me to see that the regular laws of physics continued to apply.
Outside, I regarded my surroundings with suspicion, as though they were a dream I might wake up from. Like everyone, I had recently watched The Matrix. Would it be so bad to discover that life until now, or some portion of it, had been illusory—a n advanced society's highly realistic simulation? It might actually be a relief.
Downstairs, Mrs. Chin restocked the key chains of her souvenir shop. She was arguing with Mr. Peng, who owned the salon next door. Seeing me, they paused their quarrel.
"Lei hou, Lily," Mrs. Chin said with a wave, pronouncing it lee lee. She'd taught me exactly three words of Cantonese: Lei hou ma?
How are you?
"Lei hou ma!" I called back. "I'm okay," I added, in English.
Mrs. Chin's hair, newly permed, shimmered with auburn highlights—Mr. Peng's handiwork. From a plastic bag with a happy face on it, she pulled ...
Excerpted from Real Americans by Rachel Khong. Copyright © 2024 by Rachel Khong. Excerpted by permission of Knopf. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Knopf. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.
Rachel Khong's sophomore novel Real Americans is an intergenerational saga that questions racial and cultural identity and our control over our destinies. Over the course of the book, we meet May, her daughter Lily, and her grandson Nick. May, who flees China's Cultural Revolution and the persecution of scientists and academics, is driven by a passion for understanding gene expression. In America, she pursues her research at a lab affiliated with a powerful family's pharmaceutical empire. She remakes herself and her family to fit into her new homeland, raising Lily to speak only English, leave milk and cookies for Santa, and pack bologna-and-white-bread sandwiches for lunch. Yet Lily, a Florida girl who by her early twenties has barely left the state, let alone the country, finds herself routinely introduced as "Korean" and "Thai" by her boss at the travel magazine where she is an unpaid intern.
Lily lacks her mother's driving ambition and worries about this, unsure of what she is meant for in life, until she meets Matthew, a rich white guy from a storied East Coast family who opens for her a world of privilege and power, and the possibility of belonging. Their son, Nick, is blond-haired and blue-eyed, growing into the classic all-American high schooler. Yet living on a secluded Washington island with his mother, Nick still feels the outsider, wondering why he looks nothing like Lily, and who his father is, which she keeps a secret.
As the title suggests, the book explores what it means to be a "real American." Each of the three main characters feels excluded in some way: one doesn't look the part; one looks the part but feels different from his peers; one's past life and language is just too different to be shared in current surroundings. Yet the individualism of all their behaviors seems undeniably American in contrast to family-oriented Confucian values, or the greater-whole social principles of Chinese Communism. This individualism manifests in May's ambition, Lily's rootlessness, and Nick's self-centeredness and teenage angst. Competing interpretations of each character and their identity create a tension that echoes throughout the book. Lily is described both as an "antisocial Chinese mom," by her son's best friend, and "a real American," by someone from her past who is amazed by her inability to speak Chinese and lack of knowledge about China's history.
Throughout the book lingers the question of one's future: fate, destiny, free will. May, ever the scientist, learns of nucleotide-encoding DNA sequences and wonders what traits a person is born with, as opposed to what traits they can change. Her research focuses on epigenetics and protein expression, as she attempts to actively choose which traits can be expressed. Lily and Nick's experiences of free will and fate come about in a more fantastical way: They can control how time moves for them. In pivotal moments, time dilates and they can turn over every possible decision and potential option before choosing. This ability feels a little random and incongruently sci-fi in a book that is otherwise purely literary fiction, but is easily glossed over in the larger context of the story. Each character makes monumental decisions to escape what they think they know of their past, but with consequences for future generations. Each tries to love in a way that repairs prior broken relationships with parents, but still creates family disputes. Nick, despite not knowing his grandmother May, ends up working in an iteration of the same field of research as an adult. The characters' experiences are told in a non-linear sequence, and we only learn May's complete story at the end. Khong's unspoken question remains: If we really knew and understood our past, would we make the same decisions? How much of our lives can we change; are they destined, free will, or luck?
Overall, I adored this book, which asks lots of thoughtful questions without feeling heavy or too philosophical. As a Chinese-American reader, I particularly related to many of the identity questions posed, though this exploration is relevant to anyone who has ever gone to a gift shop and not been able to find their name on a souvenir keychain. While I identified most with Lily as a character, May's story, set during the Cultural Revolution, was most fascinating, if heartrending, as it's a section of history that is often still too painful to discuss for many of my generation's parents and grandparents. By understanding May's story, I understand a little more of my own family's history and motivations. Real Americans is a beautiful work of prose: crisp, well-paced, told through an excellent narrative. Thoroughly worth a read.
Reviewed by Pei Chen
Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half
Rated 
of 5
by Cathryn Conroy
A Thoughtful, Ingeniously Plotted Novel About the Choices We Make with the Life We've Been Given
This is a multigenerational saga about a Chinese-American family that will take you from the 1950s rice paddies in the southern basin of China's Yangtze River to Mao's 1960s Cultural Revolution to 9/11 in New York City to the hot-shot San Francisco tech scene of the 2020s. It's a can't-put-it-down read that is part historical novel, part romance, and part coming-of-age tale.
Written by Rachel Khong, this is the story of May and Charles, two university students who aren't in love but join together to flee Mao's repressive China in the 1960s. After a few years in Hong Kong, they emigrate to the United States, where they get jobs as scientists working on the connection between DNA and genetic engineering. When the company changes hands, they move to Florida. May and Charles have one child, a daughter named Lily. She is a great disappointment to them. Lily loves art, but is not talented enough to be an artist herself. She floats around New York City, barely financially solvent, until she meets Matthew, a tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed rich American. They fall in love and marry. They have a son named Nick. When Lily finds out something nefarious, unethical, and highly reprehensible that her mother did to Lily when Lily was just a little girl, and later to her infant son, she flees, swearing to never speak to her mother again.
This plot summary above is told in chronological order. The book is wildly different, beginning with Lily and Matthew's romance in 2000, continuing with Nick's coming-of-age story in the 2020s, and ending with May's incredible, eyepopping tale that begins in the 1950s. It is only at the very end that the three stories finally come together.
The three tales are very different, so different that the novel reads more like three novellas. Lily and Matthew's romance is a sweet, ChickLit tale. (Don't be fooled! The rest of the novel is not like that.) Nick's coming-of-age story drags on a bit too long, told in the naïve voice of a teenager/young adult. And finally, the crux of the novel—its real heart and soul—is told in May's astonishing life story.
Ingeniously plotted and written with insight and candor, this is a thoughtful novel about the choices we make with the life we are given. It is a story about family, race, and inheritance. It is a story about fortune—and that word's multiple senses of meaning. I found the novel to be intriguing and compelling as it examines what it means to be a "real" American, as well as a good human being.
Rated of 5
by Gloria M
Must Read!
I vaguely remember all the great reviews and awards Rachel Khong received back in 2017 for her first published novel, "Goodbye, Vitamin" and thinking I should add it to my TBR list, which somehow never actually happened (which I totally regret-and it's on there now!) but I definitely was thrilled to get a free copy of "Real Americans" (thank you to Penguin Random House.)
I devoured this one in two days-which meant I did not pay much attention to real life-but, that's fine because it was so worth it. On the basic level it is a tale of Lily Chen, a 22 year old unpaid intern in New York City who meets Matthew, a wealthy heir to a pharmaceutical fortune. One of the most memorable quotes is Lily saying "More than I love you, I wanted him to say that he knew me. Who else did?" The expertly written and crafted tale shares their journey to love, with both obstacles and moments of joy, but also goes much, much further than that.
It includes multiple generations, with deep dives into Lily's parents-especially her mother , May and her son, Nick. May preferred her career in biology to her role as a mother, and this understandably resulted in many difficulties for Lily. But, a secret will soon be revealed that changes everyone's lives and raises relevant questions about nurture vs. nature, and the whole concept of family (including creating your own family outside of birth ties.) Throw in the issues of race and class and ethics and Khong has produced a modern classic.
I highly recommend this book to all who love family stories and literary works of art!
May, the matriarch of Rachel Khong's Real Americans, is born into a poor rural Chinese family in the 1950s. Her fate is foretold by her mother's life: wake before dawn to cook breakfast, clean up after the men in the family, head to the rice paddies and toil until the time to head home to cook supper, rinse and repeat. It is backbreaking. Luckily for May, she possesses an academic gift and an intellectual curiosity that missed her elder brothers. She excels at the National Exam, testing into esteemed Peking University to study biology. Her tuition is sponsored by the state and she escapes rural poverty to become a glamorous urban student. "You look like the girl from the [propaganda] poster," May's young cousin says admiringly on her return to the village for Chinese New Year, by which she means, May looks healthy and beautiful. May is blossoming in her 20s: young, in love, free from home, and free to pursue the science she loves. But social and political changes are happening around her.
The Cultural Revolution began in May 1966 under Chairman Mao Zedong, starting first on school campuses in Beijing. The stated goal was to remake society into the communist ideal and reject the Four Olds (old ideas, old culture, old customs, and old habits). Anything with perceived ties to the West or to the bourgeoisie was smashed, dismantled, or violently attacked.
The horror unleashed towards the accused "capitalist roaders" of this period is captured in the opening scene of Liu Cixin's popular science fiction novel The Three-Body Problem. Scientists were seen as having international connections due to global cooperation in research, and their desire to question rather than accept party propaganda was taken as evidence of disloyalty to the state and revolution. Academics, including scientists and intellectuals, were denounced, their property taken, and were physically tortured or forced into hard agrarian labor. The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the premier Chinese research institute, has records of 229 scientists who were killed or took their own lives during this period. While this number may seem small compared to the half to two million total lives estimated to be lost, these were just the officially recorded figures and the broader impact on the field of science and research was overwhelming. "The Cultural Revolution devastated China's science and technological undertakings," writes Chunli Bai, the current president of CAS. The national college entrance exam was closed, universities would admit no new undergraduates from 1966 to 1969 and no new graduate students through 1977, and scientific journals ceased publication.
Research became defined as an inherently political act, with everything from choice of topics to methods of investigation being seen as political. For instance, researchers could choose areas of study such as crop yield, which would benefit the masses. However, an area of study not directly beneficial to the masses or preferring an expert-driven level of experimentation would be seen as counter-revolutionary. Scientists learned to parrot political dogma, weaving it into their research and methodology to escape ostracization. This represented a sharp departure from the evidence-driven, facts-based approach of the classical scientific method and has implications even today for how Chinese research and findings are accepted by the larger scientific community.
Filed under People, Eras & Events
By Pei Chen
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