Books

Yale student Lily Chen arrives in Taipei hungry: for family, for culture, for connection.But her summer of discovery quickly unravels. Her classes are grueling, her roommate unbearable, and a reckless, deeply awkward trip to the hot springs with a guy she barely knows soon ignites vicious gossip.Then her grandfather dies.Grieving and adrift, Lily must confront her own questions about the culture she inherited but never fully understood. She embarks on a wryly funny, often devastating search for understanding: of herself, her family, and the meaning of home.All over one unforgettable summer in Taipei.’Kuang is sharply attuned to current mores, but prefers satire to lecturing – reminiscent, in this respect, of her fellow American writers Kiley Reid and Curtis Sittenfeld, who have also written wonderful campus novels.

Philip Deval, a soldier recently returned from the beaches of Normandy, arrives in Palestine on a peace-keeping mission in the final days of the British Mandate.

The Sea of Galilee glitters in the distance as war-weary troops marvel at the novelty of oranges and sun a paradise that belies a fierce new conflict about to erupt.

Some years later, Philip begins work teaching at a school in the English countryside and meets the enigmatic music mistress, Frances Darwood. Over long evenings spent listening to records in her music room, they grow close.

But Philip is a changed man, and must confront the secrets and scars of all he has lived through which threaten, even now, to upend his future.

Farewell to Eden is a sweeping and profound novel about faith in all its forms, and a rich portrait of an embattled post-war Britain. It asks the question: how, after great suffering, do we retain our humanity, learn to love again, and believe in the promise of a better life?