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There is a scene in which they take the newly adopted Deming out for Chinese food with some friends, a white couple with an adopted Chinese daughter the discussion of the food’s authenticity and quality, which Deming knows is subpar, is painful to read.

The characters who don’t fare so well in the compassion arena are Deming/Daniel’s well-meaning but borderline stereotypically white adoptive parents, Kay and Peter, who seem to assume that their attempts at cultural sensitivity make them superior judges. It is a true testament to Ko’s talent as an author that Deming, Polly, and the rest of her cast end up being shown in such a sympathetic and relatable light.

At points, nearly all of them make cringe-worthy decisions and risk becoming unlikable. The characters in The Leavers are all fantastically flawed human beings. While his chapters are told in third person, hers are in first we gain a sense of intimacy with this imperfect woman, bogged down by a variety of things – her desire to live in the city, an unplanned pregnancy, outstanding debts for her trip to America, her immigration status. The Leavers is really two novels: Deming’s story and that of his mother. After burning every bridge there is to burn, Deming runs into Michael, the nephew of his mother’s former boyfriend, and begins a journey to find out the truth of what happened the fateful day his mother left. He’s isolating friends from his youth and disappointing his adoptive parents. Now in his early twenties and seemingly focused on self-destruction, Deming is facing down a developing alcohol problem and gambling addiction. Purchase: Powell’s | Amazon | IndieBound | iBooksĬut ahead a few years. Publisher: Algonquin Booksįormats: Hardcover, eBook, Kindle, Audiobook, Audible Adopted by the Wilkersons, upper-middle class white college professors who live upstate, Deming is renamed Daniel and thrown into a culture which, to him, is completely foreign – and is expected to conform and thrive. One day, Polly leaves for her job at a nail salon and doesn’t return home, leaving her son with people who haven’t the resources to raise him.

The adults work long hours to put food on the table and raise their children in a mixed culture, at once very Chinese and American. They live with Polly’s boyfriend, his sister, and his nephew in a one-bedroom apartment. but raised for a handful of years by his grandfather in rural China) living in New York City with his mother, Polly. When Lisa Ko’s debut novel The Leavers opens, we’re introduced to Deming Guo, a young Chinese immigrant (technically born in the U.S.