Rachel Khong’s debut novel, GOODBYE, VITAMIN, was an instant hit and appeared on nearly every end-of-the-year list. It’s no secret that readers and critics alike have been anxiously awaiting her next book, and after reading REAL AMERICANS, you’ll see exactly why. Bold, poignant and surprisingly tender, this sophomore release solidifies Khong’s standing as a writer to watch.

Divided into three sections, each focused on a different generation of one Chinese American family, REAL AMERICANS begins at the pivotal moment of Y2K in New York City, where unpaid intern Lily Chen is attending her company’s holiday party. She’s grateful every day to be working in the immense glass building that towers over the sprawling city, full of so much promise. But she’s also not unaware of the score. Unlike her (paid, probably overpaid) executive boss, she is poor, and the company party is not an opportunity for her to kick back, drink too much champagne, and take a taxi back to her apartment. It’s a chance to stuff herself silly on free food and hope that her boss doesn’t introduce her as Thai, Korean, Japanese or any other racist assumptions.

"REAL AMERICANS is a probing, inciting and yet miraculously tender and introspective book about identity... The themes of immigration, racism, the American dream and cultural assimilation (and, most searingly, the self-loathing it engenders) play major roles in this sweeping, epic family saga."

He does do this and more, but he also introduces Lily to his nephew, Matthew, a WASPy “muscular nerd” who takes an immediate, genuine interest in her and her work. Later that night, when Matthew wins a 40-inch flat-screen TV (an unbelievable treasure, by Y2K standards), he offers it to her instead, and…you know how this story goes. But there’s a twist, revealed only when Lily and Matthew are about to wed. He’s not just her boss’s nephew; he’s the heir to a major pharmaceutical company and the kind of wealth that could bury Lily’s past and cement her standing as a Real American. But is that what she wants?

The result of the couple’s whirlwind romance (complete with dinners in Paris and financial security) is Nick, the focus of the book’s second part. In 2021, 15-year-old Nick lives with his single mother, on an island off the coast of Washington state, a far cry from the city Lily loved so much. Nick knows only two things about his father: he is white, and he wants nothing to do with him. This bothers Nick, but not as much as the other, more conventional issues plaguing teens everywhere: crushes and first loves, his GPA and college applications, and, of course, puberty and young adulthood.

Although Nick’s story is very much a coming-of-age tale, it mirrors his mother’s character arc as a twentysomething in New York City in resonant, satisfying ways --- most notably in his race, which presents as fully white, prompting questions from his overly curious friends who want to know why he looks nothing like his Chinese mother. So, naturally, readers must wonder: What happened to Matthew? The answer arrives, in a ripped-from-the-headlines twist, via an ancestry website, where Nick is able to track down his father…and his famous name. With his father comes surprising new conflicts, each more and more reflective of the novel’s title: What makes you a Real American?

Nick believes that his father’s wealth will do the trick, as well as the access it grants him to Ivy League education, unbelievable career opportunities and long-standing, secret connections. But it also presents him with a moral choice: How does a boy, now a man, who wanted everything react when he finally gets it? Do ethics fit into wealth? And can we, as readers, ever truly sympathize with the rich and corrupt?

If Nick’s section sounds like a downer, it is the third and final portion that brings the novel to a resounding, fulfilling climax. In this third act, set in 2030, we meet May, Lily’s genetic scientist mother, reflecting on her life in her senior years as she observes her grandson working at a biotechnology startup. A survivor of Mao Zedong’s China, May’s life has always walked a tightrope with hardship, including life in Beijing during the time of the Cultural Revolution. As an outspoken, ambitious girl, her survival has never been guaranteed. This tension makes her hungry for knowledge. Although she is brilliant and daring in her career, as a mother she is, quite frankly, a nightmare. However, it is through her recounting of her first love, marriage and mothering that the complete story of Lily, Matthew and Nick is fully untangled. It’s a story centuries in the making yet skillfully, sweepingly told in this expansive book that reads like the best summer thriller, but with way more heart.

Already a national book club pick and an early contender for 2024’s “Best of” lists, REAL AMERICANS is a probing, inciting and yet miraculously tender and introspective book about identity: whether it is predestined or informed by our parents and the love that makes us, or if it is something we can change, and, if so, whether we can truly change it or only mimic a changed reality. The themes of immigration, racism, the American dream and cultural assimilation (and, most searingly, the self-loathing it engenders) play major roles in this sweeping, epic family saga.

But Khong’s interest in identity and the self goes even deeper than these man-made limitations. The answer to our selves, she demonstrates, begins and ends with those who create, raise, love and nurture us…even if they aren’t always the same people.