Ahn Love

A dreamy, poignant romp, Ahn Love opens with Margaret visiting her widowed father,Ahn, on his ninetieth birthday. His crippling loneliness--anchored in the belief that if his orchids ever bloom, his late wife will return--transports Margaret back to the summer of 1969 and the Ahns‘ seven-day cruise across the Pacific. On that fateful voyage, a teenage Margaret--nicknamed Monkey--witnessed the unraveling of her family: her beloved but servile Uncle Bong‘s betrayal, her mother‘s fateful encounter with a Brazilian playboy, and the first stirrings of her own awakening. Amid the glittering decks and restless seas, Margaret experiences the dizzying highs and crushing lows of youth--magic, tragic, exotic, and erotic--all new to her, including a brief but intoxicating romance with the dashing Adam Kang, a young Korean Brit. As memory and present entwine, Ahn Love becomes a tender meditation on desire, loss, and the fragile beauty of time--where the seeds of love and heartbreak are sown in equal measure.