NICOLE CHUNG, author of A Living Remedy
About this Event
Karissa Chen’s sweeping and poignant debut novel, HOMESEEKING, illuminates the
grand scope of the Chinese diaspora through the intimate story of Haiwen and Suchi,
childhood best friends turned star-crossed soulmates, and their sixty-year journey back
to each other. Inspired by her grandfather’s separation from his family during the
Chinese Civil War, Chen gives readers a meticulously researched and emotionally
stirring story ten years in the making, rich in cultural and historical detail and sharply
drawn characters and relationships. With wisdom and beautiful insight, she navigates
the themes of love, migration, and the immigrant experience, all while imbuing her debut
with undying hope and the knowledge that, no matter the circumstances, home is
always within reach.
A single choice can define an entire life. Suchi first sees Haiwen in their Shanghai
neighborhood when she is seven years old, drawn by the sound of his violin. Their
childhood friendship blossoms into love, but when Haiwen secretly enlists in the
Nationalist army in 1947 to save his brother from the draft, Suchi is left with just his violin
and a note: Forgive Me.
Sixty years later, recently widowed Haiwen spots Suchi at a grocery store in Los Angeles.
It feels to Haiwen like a second chance, but Suchi has only survived by refusing to look
back. In the twilight of their lives, can they reclaim their past and the love they lost? For
readers of Pachinko and Horse, HOMESEEKING follows the separated lovers through six
decades of tumultuous Chinese history: from Shanghai to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the
United States, neither loses sight of the home they hold in their hearts.
BEHIND THE BOOK: “When people ask me about the genesis of this book, I always start
with the photograph we found among my maternal grandparents’ things after their
passing: my grandfather weeping in front of a grave, his shoulders hunched, joss sticks
clasped between his raised palms. The grave was his mother’s, whom he hadn’t seen
since he left Shanghai over forty years earlier. It is an image that has never left me.
Growing up, I knew the vague outlines of his story: how, at nineteen, he had left for
Taiwan at the end of the Chinese Civil War, not knowing he would never see his family
again; how when he finally got in touch with his family three decades later, he learned
his mother had only recently passed, his name on her lips. As a child, this type of
separation felt unfathomable to me. As an adult, I became obsessed with learning
about the history that lay behind the defining heartbreak of my grandfather’s life.
HOMESEEKING is the culmination of that obsession. At its heart is a love story, that of
two young people whose lives are forever changed by both the machinations of war
and the impossible choices they must make. It is my attempt to answer the questions
that arose in me when I saw my grandfather’s picture: When forces out of your control
tear you away from your loved ones, how do you survive the regret and grief? And how
do you — if it is even possible — find home again?” –Karissa Chen
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Unity Temple on The Plaza, Charles Fillmore Chapel, 707 W 47th Street, Kansas City, United States
USD 39.41
