Disorientation

In this wildly funny and shockingly sensitive first book, a Taiwanese American woman's awakening causes shocking discoveries and mayhem on a college campus.

Ingrid Yang, a 29-year-old doctoral candidate, is driven to complete her research on the late canonical poet Xiao-Wen Chou and put an end to her reading of "Chinese-y" literature. But all she has to show for her years of arduous research is an addiction to junk food and stomach ache. She tells herself that a strange letter she happens to come upon one day in the Chou archives is her way out of academic prison.

But Ingrid is much more involved than she realizes. Her awkward attempts to decipher the note's meaning result in a shocking revelation that upends not just her insulated existence in academia but also her whole world outside of it. Together, they set off a roller coaster of blunders and escapades, from book burnings and over-the-counter drug hallucinations to hot-button rallies and Yellow Peril 2.0 propaganda, with her loyal friend Eunice Kim at her side and her competitor Vivian Vo hard on her heels.

After the incident, everything seems different to Ingrid, including her kind and loving fiancé Stephen Greene. First concerns and fears surface when he goes on a book tour with the very cute Japanese author he translated. Ingrid will have to face her problematic connection with white men, white institutions, and most importantly, herself, as the events she started continue to spiral out of control.

Readers of Charles Yu's Interior Chinatown and Paul Beatty's The Sellout will find this ferocious and heartfelt satire to be a biting critique of American privilege and power as well as a deep examination of personal culpability and suppressed fury. Elaine Hsieh Chou explores the questions of who gets to tell our tales and how they alter when we eventually tell them ourselves in this gripping first book.