JUNE 2018 - AudioFile
Narrator Jennifer Lim has fun with the character of Sunny, an opinionated housemaid who works for a series of contemporary Chinese families. Listeners follow Sunny to her first employer when her family ousts her to make room for her brother's child. Her story continues when she moves from employer to employer. Lim’s narration is arch, sardonic, and swiftly paced. These qualities highlight the humor laced throughout the novel, especially when it zooms in on Sunny’s time with the Zhen family. With her lively performance, Lim places Sunny's hopes and aspirations center stage, illuminating their stark contrast with Sunny’s status as a working-class single woman. There are a number of other female characters, and Lim makes them as familiar as our own friends. M.R. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
05/28/2018
Tan’s solid debut centers on Shanghai housewife Lina Zhen and her observant former housekeeper, Sunny. Lina still holds a torch for Qiang, the wild brother of her husband, Wei, though Qiang has been gone for 20 years. After living in the U.S., the Zhen family relocates to Shanghai, now a part of the upper class, for Wei’s lucrative, high-profile marketing job, which allows Lina to forgo working and live a life of leisure. She’s often at home while Wei works late and on weekends, tending to her 12-year-old daughter, Karen, when she isn’t being educated abroad. When Qiang sees Wei on television and contacts the family, Lina looks forward to finally being able to ask him why he reneged on their plans to run away together before her wedding. In anticipation of spending time with Qiang, Lina hires Sunny, their housekeeper of five years before they moved to the U.S., to look after Karen for the summer. Sunny picks up on the situation in the household and wonders how Wei can remain so clueless. Sunny also sends part of her paycheck back to her family in Hefei, who wonder why she prefers to work rather than settle down and have a baby. Sunny and Wei’s stories are arresting, but Qiang and Lina come off as entitled in spite of the author’s efforts to make them sympathetic. Despite this, the novel presents an intriguing portrait of class, duty, and family. (July)
From the Publisher
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize
Named one of the Best of Books of 2018 by The Washington Post, Refinery 29, and Amazon
A Barnes and Noble Discover Pick
"What We Were Promised glows through its intimate, skillful prose. Tan's debut is a beautiful reckoning with the ever-changing definition of "home" - what it means to have, lose and find family again."—USA Today
""Charming debut novel. . . . Through a set of fascinating characters, Tan delivers a compelling story that raises questions about assimilation, family dynamics, and the personal reverberations of globalization."—National Book Review
"Dramatic and deeply moving, this would be perfect Oscar material."—Crystal Hana Kim, Washington Post
"Winner of Ploughshares' Emerging Writer award, Lucy Tan draws an astute portrait of a staid family thrown into disarray in this assured first novel. She does not explore the Tolstoyan adage of unhappy families, but rather throws a stone into the still pool of carefully balanced domesticity. With its measuring of expectation against reality, What We Were Promised showcases Tan's sharp eye for the intricacies of human relationships."—Shelf Awareness
"Fans of Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians series will especially enjoy What We Were Promised."—Refinery29
"A tightly crafted debut wrought with the measured voice of an expert craftsperson, Lucy Tan's WHAT WE WERE PROMISED is an exquisite exploration of class, family and self."—Bookreporter
"A luminous family saga"—Entertainment Weekly
"Intriguing debut novel. Set in Shanghai, made empathic with a multigenerational family saga, embellished with timeless class conflict, this story entertains and enlightens."—Christian Science Monitor
"The ultimate message of What We Were Promised is one all young, millennial readers can relate to."—Bustle
"As the narrative jumps across decades and continents, it throws the rural villages and urban skylines, as well as the lives of the locals and aloof expatriates, into sharp relief. . . . All the while, Tan asks what it means to belong-to a person or a place."—Time
"Against a contemporary global backdrop, made empathic with a multigenerational family saga, embellished with timeless servant/master (and mistress) class conflict, Tan's debut will be entertaining - and enlightening - to savvy cosmopolitan readers throughout the summer and beyond."—Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center
"Fans of Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians series will especially enjoy What We Were Promised, which takes place among a similar social set."—Refinery 29
"Lucy Tan is an author to watch"—Amazon Book Review
"This book boasts a very memorable cast of characters... A compelling, sensitive and thoughtful debut that is sure to move you."—Afoma Umesi
"With its measuring of expectation against reality, What We Were Promised establishes Tan as a new talent with a sharp eye for the intricacies of human relationships."—Shelf Awareness
"Tan's novel will strike a chord with anyone who looks to the future with uncertainty."—My Domaine
"For book clubs that love reading about complicated family dynamics and transitional periods, this book will provide fodder for great conversations—Bookish
"A compelling story of class, culture, regret, and anxiety about the road not taken."—Modern Mrs. Darcy
"From fitting in culturally, family dynamics, and self-worth, the story will resonate with anyone who is uncertain and fearful about their future."—Women.com
"Readers may identify with one or more of the characters as they deal with historic cultural norms and modern reality—Forsyth Woman
"Tan's talent as a storyteller clearly shines through her strong plot lines and characterization; readers will want to know more about each well-crafted player in the story . . . . A novel of class, culture, and expectations; readers who enjoyed works like Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians will likely find Tan's surprising and down-to-earth tale an entertaining read."—Library Journal
"I read What We Were Promised in a state of enchantment, immediately drawn into the longings, secrets and very human foibles of its finely-drawn cast of characters. Both intimate and panoramic, Lucy Tan's debut is a revealing consideration of modern China as well as a thrilling discovery of the generations-long secrets between two families. Compassionate and heartbreaking, funny and wise, local and universal, What We Were Promised marks the arrival of an inspiring new voice."—ChloeBenjamin, author of The Anatomy of Dreams and The Immortalists
"Lucy Tan brings to vibrant life the self-made, newly cosmopolitan Zhens, who have gone from the tea fields and silk factories of small town China to the luxury high rises of Shanghai in one generation. Abounding in insight and deftly told, What We Were Promised is a story both sweeping and intimate, as this most modern of families discovers they must confront their past in order to find their future. "—Maggie Shipstead, author of Seating Arrangements and Astonish Me
"What We Were Promised is a big beautiful novel. Lucy Tan's dazzling debut grapples with the persistence of the past, the inevitability of the present, and the difficulty of balancing individuality with community."—Hannah Pittard, author of Visible Empire and Listen to Me
"In What We Were Promised, Tan skillfully brings to life the issues of modern day China and Shanghai. It is an immigrant story but one that also delves into the subject of going back to one's homeland. Tan humanizes each and every one of her characters. There is also depth to how the stories of past and present are interwoven. As a reader I felt that I was in good hands."—Weike Wang, author of Chemistry
"What We Were Promised is like being let into the heads of the characters in a C-drama... From its first page the novel promises a mix of emotion and intellect, plot and cultural critique, and it delivers. These characters are deeply understood and deeply felt, and the conflicts they get themselves into will keep you up at night turning pages. By the end of What We Were Promised you will agree that the real promise belongs to its debut author. Put Lucy Tan on your literary radar now."—Matthew Salesses, author of The Hundred-Year Flood
"A quietly brilliant book, and a truly singular debut."—ArnaBontemps Hemenway, award-winning author of Elegyon Kinderklavier
Kirkus Reviews
2018-04-17
Like the Emerald City in Oz, contemporary Shanghai provides the backdrop for an examination of the clash between old and new lifestyles and values in Tan's debut novel.Upon moving back to mainland China after more than 20 years in America, the Zhens finds themselves ill at ease in their new opulent and coddled setting. Husband Wei becomes unhappy with his work for a multinational advertising firm, while the previously industrious Lina settles into the unfamiliar role of taitai, a housewife with no housewifely duties and an infinite amount of time to devote to shopping and gossipy meals. Karen, their adolescent daughter, spends most of the year at an American boarding school in order to enjoy the purported advantages of "American privilege." Wei and Lina are strangers to Shanghai themselves, having shared modest beginnings in Suzhou, a silk-farming town. The silent witness to the Zhens' quietly uncomfortable household is Sunny, an observant housekeeper from rural Hefei. When the balance of the Zhens' carefully calibrated domesticity is disrupted by the reappearance of Wei's long-out-of-touch brother, Qiang, the assumptions that underpin the family's fragile equilibrium are tested. In the Zhen household, Tan brings us a microcosm of the conflicts among China's larger populations: residents versus expatriates, wealthy versus poor, urban and commercial versus rural and agrarian. Humming quietly beneath the surface of the day-to-day microdrama in the Zhens' home is the motif of the disappearance of Lina's talismanic ivory bracelet, the story of which reflects the rivalries between more than one set of characters in this portrait of people learning how to live after a period of immense repression.Tan examines the tension behind the facade of the moneyed lifestyle in a still-evolving post-Mao Shanghai, where everyone seems to be an expat in their own country.
