Fiona and Jane

Two young Taiwanese American women traverse friendship, sexuality, identity, and heartache over the course of two decades in this funny, endearing, and irreverent novel.

Best friends since second grade, Fiona Lin and Jane Shen explore the lonely freeways and seedy bars of Los Angeles together through their teenage years, surviving unfulfilling romantic encounters, and carrying with them the scars of their families' tumultuous pasts. Fiona's easy elegance and intense drive enhanced her natural attractiveness, which made Jane both fearful and enamored of her. Fiona was always bound to go. When Fiona moves to New York and cares for a sick friend through a breakup with an opportunistic boyfriend, Jane remains in California and grieves her estranged father's sudden death, in the process alienating an overzealous girlfriend. The ladies are separated by time and inadvertent betrayals, and their relationship serves as a reminder of all they have lost as well as a lighthouse of home.

In stories told in alternating voices, Jean Chen Ho's debut collection peels back the layers of female friendship--the intensity, resentment, and boundless love--to probe the beating hearts of young women coming to terms with themselves, and each other, in light of the insecurities and shame that holds them back.

Spanning countries and selves, Fiona and Jane is an intimate portrait of a friendship, a deep dive into the universal perplexities of being young and alive, and a bracingly honest account of two Asian women who dare to stake a claim on joy in a changing, contemporary America.