Shanghailanders
A dazzling and ambitious debut novel that follows a cosmopolitan Shanghai household backward in time--beginning in 2040 and moving through our present and the recent past--exploring their secrets, their losses, and the ways a family makes and remakes itself across the years.
2040: Wealthy real estate investor Leo Yang--handsome, distinguished, a real Shanghai man--is on the train back to the city after seeing his family off at the airport. His sophisticated Japanese-French wife, Eko, and their two eldest children, Yumi and Yoko, are headed for Boston, though one daughter's revelation will soon reroute them to Paris. 2039: Kiko, their youngest daughter and an aspiring actress, decides to pursue fame at any cost, like her icon Marilyn Monroe. 2038: Yumi comes to Yoko in need, after a college-dorm situation at Harvard goes disastrously wrong.
As the years rewind to 2014, Shanghailanders brings readers into the shared and separate lives of the Yang family parent by parent, daughter by daughter, and through the eyes of the people in their orbit--a nanny from the provinces, a private driver with a penchant for danger, and a grandmother whose memories of the past echo the present. We glimpse a future where the city's waters rise and the specter of apocalypse is never far off. But in Juli Min's hands, we also see that whatever may change, universal constants remain: love is complex, life is not fair, and family will always be stubbornly connected by blood, secrets, and longing.
Brilliantly constructed and achingly resonant, Shanghailanders is an unforgettable exploration of marriage, relationships, and the layered experience of time.
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Juli Min is a writer and editor based in Shanghai. She studied Russian and comparative literature at Harvard University, and she holds an MFA in fiction from Warren Wilson. She was the founding editor of the Shanghai Literary Review and served as its fiction editor from 2016 to 2023. Her first novel, Shanghailanders, will be published in May 2024 by Spiegel & Grau (US) and Dialogue Books (UK). Translations are also forthcoming in Japanese, Spanish, Norwegian, and German.
"When I first realized that Shanghailanders, Juli Min's remarkable debut novel, was told in reverse, moving backward from 2040 to 2014, the main question on my mind was, why? . . . I wondered, are the rewards of Min's unusual structure worth [it]? . . . My answer . . . would be a resounding yes. . . . Having knowledge of these characters' futures before we know about their past makes stumbling on their bygone days all the more touching."--Jean Kwok, New York Times Book Review
"[An] audacious debut . . . Min centers the cosmopolitan character of Shanghai as a magnet for ambitious outsiders, something she clearly understands. . . . As the novel moves further back in time, the stories deepen, and Min highlights key moments in the family's collective history, spanning decades and continents, from China to Japan, France and the United States. . . . Min is a talented writer whose debut shows much promise. Her own future, at least, appears bright."--Washington Post
"A thrilling, futuristic family drama that captures the joys, disappointments, and inside jokes of one Shanghai family in reverse chronological order. . . . By giving readers the gift of hindsight, Min shows how one enigmatic family falls apart and comes back together over several decades."--Time, "14 New Books You Should Read in May"
"Sophisticated and affecting . . . Unspooling backward from an imagined 2040 to 2014, this novel shows a Chinese family coping with 21st-century pressures and pleasures across three continents."--Los Angeles Times, "10 Books to Add to Your Reading List in May"
"With a cosmopolitan scope that takes readers from Shanghai, to Paris, to Boston, Shanghailanders is about love and family with a dash of magical realism. There's something here for every reader."--B&N Reads, "Most Anticipated Debuts 2024"
"Intriguing . . . An unusual and immersive reading experience . . . The prose and characterizations here and throughout are assured, particularly for a debut."--Kirkus
"Enthralling . . . Against the backdrop of Shanghai's elite circles, Min expertly takes readers on a journey backwards through time, unraveling the intricacies of the Yang family members' lives through their unique perspectives. . . . In her masterful storytelling, Min captures the essence of life in a rapidly changing city and world, reminding readers that even in times of uncertainty, love, longing, and resilience remain unwavering constants. With its richly drawn characters and thought-provoking themes, Min's debut is a captivating read that will linger in the minds of readers."--Booklist
"[An] assured debut, told in reverse chronology . . . credibly reflect[ing] the messiness of family. Min is a writer worth keeping tabs on."--Publishers Weekly
"Min's debut will be appreciated by readers who relish the joy of discovery and piecing information together to shape the characters and events in their own minds. It is an intriguing portrait of a fragmented family where nothing is ever quite what it seems."--Library Journal
"Tender, atmospheric, and wholly captivating, Shanghailanders captures la douleur exquise of family through the shifting, shimmering lives of the beguiling Yang sisters and their enigmatic parents. Juli Min has established herself as a sharp chronicler of contemporary China--and of the ever-complicated matters of the heart."--Kirstin Chen, New York Times-bestselling author of Counterfeit
"Bracing, thrilling, and breathtakingly smart, Shanghailanders is more than a spectacular debut--it offers a new way of seeing. Not just of Shanghai, but of France, Japan, America, and every last corner of its characters' minds. Every page is a new discovery, but the book's best is Juli Min herself. Absolutely extraordinary."--Liam Callanan, author of When in Rome and Paris by the Book
"Shanghailanders is a wonderful and wildly smart and compelling book. If Shanghai is the future, this terrific novel knows it all. We follow a glorious cluster of characters as they trip over their own longings, in this fiction of real astuteness."--Joan Silber, author of Improvement
"Lyrical and haunting, Shanghailanders explores the enduring mysteries of family. With its inventive structure--the years spooling in reverse, told through rotating perspectives--Juli Min movingly portrays the Yangs and their many seasons of love and loss in a metropolis that perpetually rises, falls, and emerges from the ashes. An extraordinary debut."--Vanessa Hua, author of Forbidden City
