A dazzling and heartfelt novel about the disorientation of grief, the hollowness of the American Dream, and the bravery of rebuilding one's identity, as the remaining daughter of a self-made Chinese-American dynasty sets off across the world to define herself in the wake of her beloved sister's death.
Everybody's heard of The Brightons. From rags to riches, sleepy Oregon to haute New York, they are the half-Chinese family that founded Kaleidoscope, a glittering, "ethnic-bohemian" shopping empire sourcing luxury goods from India and beyond. And their eldest daughter, the statuesque and talented Morgan Brighton, is their star. Riley Brighton, on the other hand, has a very different role in the family narrative: She's the "unknowable daughter" and "the other sister," eclipsed by her sister's extraordinary presence.
Despite the all-consuming nature of Morgan's role as the family pet-even garnering her the attention of the one man her sister has ever pined for-Riley loves her more than anyone. So when Morgan dies in a freak accident, Riley is devastated and left with questions that challenge everything she thought she knew about her family. Desperate to escape her grief, Riley embarks on an international journey in pursuit of answers, a journey on which she must figure out who she is and what her future looks like without her sister.
Told in arresting, addictive fragments, Kaleidoscope is at once a reckoning with the rise and fall of one wealthy family, and an examination of the precious bond between sisters, one prized and lost, the other still alive and more dynamic than her family ever cared to see.
Autorentext
Cecily Wong is the author of the novel Diamond Head, which was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, the recipient of an Elle Readers' Prize, and voted a best debut of the Brooklyn Book Festival. Her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books, Self Magazine, Bustle, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of Barnard College and lives in New York, where she is a writer at Atlas Obscura.