A Review of Rachel Khong’s Real Americans (Knopf, 2024)

[lsobiesk]

Written by Stephen Hong Sohn

Edited by Lizzy Sobiesk

Rachel Khong’s Real Americans (Knopf, 2024) was recommended to me by Nadeen K, a brilliant former student of mine, quite a while ago, but I didn’t get around to reading it until recently. In fact, I had to have a fairly serious health procedure. On the day of that procedure, I brought this book with me into the surgical waiting room, where I proceeded to have to wait for over 2.5 hours. I was so glad this book was the one I had with me, because: 1) it is fairly long and 2) it was extremely immersive. Let’s let the description get us started: “Real Americans begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster, and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn't be more different: flat-broke, raised in Tampa, the only child of scientists who fled Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Despite all this, Lily and Matthew fall in love. In 2021, fifteen-year-old Nick Chen has never felt like he belonged on the isolated Washington island where he lives with his single mother, Lily. He can't shake the sense she's hiding something. When Nick sets out to find his biological father, the journey threatens to raise more questions than it provides answers. In immersive, moving prose, Rachel Khong weaves a profound tale of class and striving, race and visibility, and family and inheritance—a story of trust, forgiveness, and finally coming home. Exuberant and explosive, Real Americans is a social novel par excellence that asks: Are we destined, or made? And if we are made, who gets to do the making? Can our genetic past be overcome?”

 

Ah, even this description uses the word immersive, so we’re of like minds =). In any case, the novel is essentially split into two parts, with each sort of mirroring the other. It’s hard to discuss the second section without some plot spoilers, so you are forewarned. The first section first proceeds like a Hollywood meet cute. Matthew and Lily meet at some party; they strike a connection and then suddenly they are off to Paris! Matthew is loaded, Lily is not, but love has no bounds in the fictional world, so they get together. Problems arise down the road though: Lily is having trouble getting pregnant. Eventually, they conceive, but the details around this birth is something that causes a rift to occur between Lily and Matthew, as well as Lily and her parents. What readers discover is that Lily’s and Matthew’s parents already know each other and that their connection involves the scientific backgrounds of Lily’s parents. The information that Lily discovers in the wake of her pregnancy and childbirth leads her to make a radical decision to completely break ties not only with Matthew but also her parents. The second section of the novel then moves us to the Pacific Northwest where Lily is raising Nick with almost zero information about Nick’s grandparents or his biological father. We don’t know exactly the particulars of the fissure quite yet; these contexts are revealed only after Nick goes through a rift similar to the one between Lily and her parents. Nick realizes his mother has been withholding information about his background, which he discovers after he reconnects to his father. Nick eventually comes into contact with Lily’s mother, who reveals everything behind Lily’s pregnancy and what happened between Lily, her parents, Matthew, and Matthew’s family. What I loved most about this novel is the very compelling narrative voices. There is also a slight speculative conceit with this novel, as Lily’s mother, Lily, and Matthew all share the ability to stretch out time. This element also seemed to dovetail with a science fictional engagement with bioengineering, which is connected to how Matthew is able to be conceived. I also found the conclusion very moving, as it explores how difficult it can be to raise children across multiple generations and in the shadow of complicated secrets.

 

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