In 1978 when Malinda Lo was three years old, she sat on her white American grandmother’s lap in a wheelchair as her father pushed them across the wooden bridge at the border between the People’s Republic of China and British-controlled Hong Kong. She does not remember the crossing that redefined her life; she has only been told the story.
Lo brilliantly weaves a nonlinear story of immigration and identity, connecting her childhood in small-town Colorado to her grandmother’s experiences in wartime China.
Incorporating free verse, found poetry, and lyric essay, Lo’s debut memoir excavates the tangled roots of her hybrid heritage, exposing the unspoken pain of migration and the long shadow of the American myth.
Author
Malinda Lo
Malinda Lo is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels, including most recently A Scatter of Light. Her novel Last Night at the Telegraph Club won the National Book Award, the Stonewall Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, a Michael L. Printz Honor, and was an LA Times Book Prize finalist. Kirkus Reviews hailed it as one of the best books of the 21st century so far. In addition to her work as an author, Malinda advocates for the First-Amendment rights of her fellow writers. She has been a vocal member of the Mass Freedom to Read coalition, which successfully supported the passage of An Act Regarding Free Expression in Massachusetts, and she has been a co-plaintiff in federal lawsuits in Iowa and Idaho that challenge statewide laws that lead to censorship. Born in Guangzhou, China, Malinda immigrated to the United States as a child with her family, and grew up near Boulder, Colorado. She now lives in Massachusetts with her wife and their dog.
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