Reviews

"Chang’s prose moves with the unfussy ease of a shark through water—for the longest time you are just enjoying your swim, soaking up the story. Only midway through the book does it occur to you that a master hunter is at work: a writer cutting through the darker depths of what it means to be treated as an outsider in America." —Jonathan Lee, The Guardian

“Chang’s third novel, an engrossing and darkly comedic take on ‘The Brothers Karamazov,’ tells a focused and highly readable story about the fortunes of a dysfunctional Chinese immigrant family splintered by the murder of the patriarch” —Miguel Salazar, The New York Times Book Review

"A hilarious mystery that's also a searing take on assimilation and the American dream." —People Magazine, Book of the Week

“[B]old…smart and entertaining…a rendering of late-American experience that’s measurably different from the multiple if monochromatic dysfunctions of Jonathan Franzen’s fiction, and from various immigrant novels that over-traffic in the trauma of displacement.”—Randy Boyagoda, The Financial Times

"The Family Chao is a riveting character-driven novel that delves beautifully into human psychology; Dostoevsky himself would surely approve.”—Ilana Masad, NPR

“[H]ugely satisfying…sprawling and ambitious and yet beautifully contained.”—Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times

"A playful literary romp with a serious heart. Ostensibly it’s a murder mystery, a whodunit with a large cast of possible subjects, but it’s also an exploration of genre, of literary types and stereotypes, and the impact of these types on the hopes and dreams of its characters.”—May-lee Chai, Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Chang’s entertaining portrait of a…Chinese-American family, one riven by its own jealousies and secrets, is also a memorable expose of the dark undercurrents of small-town morality.” —The Independent (A Book of the Month)

Lan Samantha Chang’s book is a mash-up of literary mystery, social commentary and romantic comedy… She is a perceptive, witty writer who revels in the mess of the dysfunctional family." —Sarah Gilmartin, The Irish Times

"Lan Samantha Chang redefines the 'immigrant novel.'" —The Boston Globe

"The cracked radishes in hot oil aren’t all that’s sizzling in this bravely unsentimental murder mystery about a Chinese American family in small-town Wisconsin....Lan Samantha Chang is the first female director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She plainly has plenty to teach about the art of fiction." —Richard Lipez, The Washington Post

"The author turns the tired truism about every town having a Chinese restaurant on its head in a new novel set in Haven, Wis. After Leo Chao, the owner-patriarch of Fine Chao, is found dead, locals refer to his three sons as ‘the Brothers Karamahjong’—and because Chang knows her Dostoyevsky, this isn’t just a slur but also the sturdy scaffolding of a beautifully executed plot." —The Los Angeles Times

"If you’ve read Chang—and I strongly suggest you do—you know that she lives and writes to push the boundaries of her craft and her world....Her new novel is a genre bender: a murder story whose prose sings and snickers and soars as engagingly as Chang’s literary fiction."
—Meredith Maran, The Washington Post

"In this timely, trenchant, and thoroughly entertaining book, an immigrant family’s dreams are paid for in blood. For Chang, this marks a triumphant return.” —Publisher's Weekly (Starred Review)

"Like in Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres and Zadie Smith's On Beauty, Chang looks backward to move forward, borrowing the storyline of a revered classic to explore something brand new about the American dream. Funny, thought-provoking, and paced like a thriller, The Family Chao radically redefines the immigrant novel while balancing entertainment and delight." —BookPage (Starred Review)

"Chang’s well-turned third novel neatly balances two substantial themes. One is the blast radius of family dysfunction... The second is the way anti-immigrant attitudes warp the truth and place additional pressure on an overstressed family.... As with Dostoevsky’s original, the story culminates in a trial that becomes a stage for broader debates over obligation, morality, and family. But Chang is excellent at exploring this at a more intimate level as well. A later plot twist deepens the tension and concludes a story that smartly offers only gray areas in response to society’s demands for simplicity and assurance....A disruptive, sardonic take on the assimilation story." —Kirkus (Starred Review)

"At times scathing and hilarious, the rollicking tale considers the thorny themes of assimilation, identity, pride, filial piety, transracial adoption, and interracial relationships. It’s a fine chaos indeed; you’ll never look at Chinese restaurant families the same." —Vogue

"Family drama, murder mystery, love story, The Family Chao is an oftentimes funny and sometimes sad portrait of a Chinese American family who runs that most ubiquitous of institutions: the Chinese restaurant. With nuance and slyness, wit and empathy, Chang turns the desires and deceits of one unhappy family into a moving and compelling saga of that classic American illness: ambition." —Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Committed

"Both a homage to The Brothers Karamazov and the gripping story of three brothers, their tyrannical father and the family restaurant set in the American Midwest....A marvelous and wonderfully entertaining novel." —Margot Livesey, author of The Boy in the Field

“The Family Chao is riveting, delicious, full of love and danger, an intricate look at the so-called American Dream and one small-town American family trying and failing to save itself. Lan Samantha Chang's characters are unforgettable: dear, maddening, funny, cruel. The Family Chao is an up-to-the-minute look at what it means to be accused and visible in America, and also an old-fashioned page-turner. A book to stay up late reading, and then to dream about." —Elizabeth McCracken, author of The Hero Of This Book

“A Dickensian drama of family conflicts and intrigues; an insightful comedy of the American immigrant experience, and of a small town’s inner workings. Chang’s creation of characters through dialogue is worthy of a great playwright.” —John Irving, author of Avenue of Mysteries

“In this symphonic novel, Chang gives us a multitude of souls lost and found: the gregarious are isolated, the ruthless are hunted, the voiceless scheme with hidden power, the innocent suffer from murderous desire. This is one of the finest and most ambitious novels about America I've read in recent years.” —Yiyun Li, author of The Book of Goose

“The Family Chao, an intoxicatingly bold and capacious wonder, is a compelling murder mystery, a love story, a legal drama, a meditation on internalized racism, an examination of fraternal bonds and filial burdens, and a wrenching vivisection of race. This provocatively honest novel illuminates the inextricable ties between family and society, exposes the pain of being an eternal outsider, explores the array of ways in which bigotry smothers the spirit, and lays to waste the polite lie that human experience is universal in a country with such a particular history.”
—T. Geronimo Johnson, author of Welcome to Braggsville 

“I loved Lan Samantha Chang’s The Family Chao, at once a brilliant reimagining of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and a wholly original and gripping story about the passions, rivalries and searing pressures that roil a singular immigrant family.”

—Jess Walter, author of The Cold Millions and Beautiful Ruins

“Lan Samantha Chang’s The Family Chao is a gorgeous and gripping literary mystery that leads the reader into a hall of mirrors, reflecting with its kaleidoscopic vision themes of family, betrayal, passion, race, culture and the American Dream. Devastating and searing, laugh-out-loud funny and profound, Chang’s latest novel is infused with beautiful, evocative writing that will quicken your heart and mind. A masterpiece.”
—Jean Kwok, author of Searching for Sylvie Lee

"Part whodunit, part courtroom drama, part great American novel." —PowellsBooks.Blog