Joan Is Okay: A Novel Hardcover – January 18, 2022 by Weike Wang

Description

Author: Wang Weike

Brand: Random House

Color: Cream

Package Dimensions: 14x210x358

Number Of Pages: 224

Release Date: 18-01-2022

Details: Product Description
A
witty, moving, piercingly insightful new novel about a marvelously complicated woman who can’t be anyone but herself, from the award-winning author of Chemistry

“A deeply felt portrait . . . With gimlet-eyed observation laced with darkly biting wit, Weike Wang masterfully probes the existential uncertainty of being other in America.”—Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere

ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022—Esquire, Bustle, Town & Country, Lit Hub

Joan is a thirtysomething ICU doctor at a busy New York City hospital. The daughter of Chinese parents who came to the United States to secure the American dream for their children, Joan is intensely devoted to her work, happily solitary, successful. She does look up sometimes and wonder where her true roots lie: at the hospital, where her white coat makes her feel needed, or with her family, who try to shape her life by their own cultural and social expectations.

Once Joan and her brother, Fang, were established in their careers, her parents moved back to China, hoping to spend the rest of their lives in their homeland. But when Joan’s father suddenly dies and her mother returns to America to reconnect with her children, a series of events sends Joan spiraling out of her comfort zone just as her hospital, her city, and the world are forced to reckon with a health crisis more devastating than anyone could have imagined.

Deceptively spare yet quietly powerful, laced with sharp humor, Joan Is Okay touches on matters that feel deeply resonant: being Chinese-American right now; working in medicine at a high-stakes time; finding one’s voice within a dominant culture; being a woman in a male-dominated workplace; and staying independent within a tight-knit family. But above all, it’s a portrait of one remarkable woman so surprising that you can’t get her out of your head.
Amazon.com Review
Let me just be frank, Joan is more than okay. She’s a narrator I could read forever. She is naïve, unfiltered, intensely dedicated to her job as a New York City ICU doctor, whip-smart, wry, and views the world differently than most. And there are many reasons for that: she’s a Chinese-American; her wealthy brother is constantly trying to get her to move to Connecticut; her mother is returning to the states; and her father just died. How will she cope with it all? Weike Wang, author of the award-winning
Chemistry, not only meets this pandemic moment with a story of identity and isolation but does so with such bright comedy and care that it is impossible not to feel protective over Joan and humanity as a whole. In other words,
Joan is Okay, is another brilliant novel from Wang.
—Al Woodworth, Amazon Editor
Review
“Weike Wang takes us into the heart of the matter: death, dysfunction, xenophobia, misogyny, and the chronic misapprehension that passes between people of good intentions. The miracle that emerges, then, is just how funny this book is, how compassionate and visionary.”
—Joshua Ferris, author of A Calling for Charlie Barnes

“Incisive yet tender, written with elegant style and delicious verve. Joan isn’t just okay, she’s wonderful. I could listen to her smart, witty voice forever.”
—Sigrid Nunez, National Book Award-Winning author of The Friend
“
Joan Is Okay charts the internal story of the mythic immigrant success narrative in a tragicomedy about the costs of generational betterment.”
—Mona Simpson, author of My Hollywood and Casebook

“This is an Asian American novel like no other, set in the heart of the pandemic, in the city I call home. Joan is my hero.”
—Ed Park
“Joan is a character I will be thinking about for a long time to come. I could not put this book down.”
—Angie Kim, author of Miracle Creek

“Scathingly witty . . . Wang is wonderful at understated sadness presented without a twinge of self-pity.”
—Jim Shepard, author of The Book of Aron

“I am staggered by Weike Wang’s humor, heart, and brilliance. I loved Jo