Number One Chinese Restaurant Lillian Li by Lillian Li 9781250141309, 1250141303, B0769ZNKY7 instant download after payment.

An exuberant and wise multi-generational debut novel about the complicated lives and loves of people working in everyone’s favourite Chinese restaurant. 

"A wonderfully honest portrait of what it takes to make it in America."  -  The Village Voice

The popular Beijing Duck House in Rockville, Maryland has been serving devoted regulars for decades, but behind the staff's professional smiles simmer tensions, heartaches and grudges from decades of bustling restaurant life. Owner Jimmy Han has ambitions for a new high-end fusion place, hoping to eclipse his late father's homely establishment. Jimmy's older brother, Johnny, is more concerned with restoring the dignity of the family name than his faltering relationship with his own teenage daughter, Annie. Nan and Ah-Jack, longtime Duck House employees, yearn to turn their thirty-year friendship into something more, while Nan's son, Pat, struggles to stay out of trouble. 

When disaster strikes and Pat and Annie find themselves in a dangerous game that means tragedy for the Duck House, their families must finally confront the conflicts and loyalties simmering beneath the red and gold lanterns.

"Evocative... Li's novel revolves around the tangled inner workings of the family-owned Beijing Duck House... Chinese-born family members and workers [for whom] the Beijing Duck House has displaced Beijing itself as 'the heart-centre of the universe.'...[Li's writing] engrossed."  -  The New York Times Book Review

Generous in spirit, unaffected in its intelligence, multi-voiced, poignant, and darkly funny, Number One Chinese Restaurant looks beyond red tablecloths and silkscreen murals to share an unforgettable story about youth and aging, parents and children, and all the ways that our families destroy us while also keeping us grounded and alive.