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Behind the professional veneer of the staff at a Maryland Chinese duck house, tensions, heartaches and grudges from decades of hard work unfold. Rich and multigenerational, with the expansive scope of acclaimed television.
About the author
Lillian Li is from the D.C. metro area and lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her work has appeared in Granta, Guernica, Bon Appetit, and Jezebel. Number One Chinese Restaurant is her first novel.
Summary
The popular Beijing Duck House in Rockville, Maryland has been serving devoted regulars for decades, but behind the staff's professional smiles simmer tensions, heartaches and grudges from decades of bustling restaurant life.
Owner Jimmy Han has ambitions for a new high-end fusion place, hoping to eclipse his late father's homely establishment. Jimmy's older brother, Johnny, is more concerned with restoring the dignity of the family name than his faltering relationship with his own teenage daughter, Annie. Nan and Ah-Jack, longtime Duck House employees, yearn to turn their thirty-year relationship into something more, while Nan's son, Pat, struggles to stay out of trouble.
When disaster strikes and Pat and Annie find themselves in a dangerous game that means tragedy for the Duck House, their families must finally confront the conflicts and loyalties simmering beneath the red and gold lanterns.
Foreword
Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, and now in paperback, the warm, moving, sharply comic debut
