PBS Books Readers Club – Rachel Khong

PBS Books Readers Club – Rachel Khong

May 29 at 8:00 pm – 9:00 pm EDT

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Episode Description:

Read along with the PBS Books Readers Club this May for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. We’ll dive into Real Americans, the highly anticipated novel by Rachel Khong, author of Goodbye, Vitamin. Rachel Khong joins the PBS Books Readers Club to discuss this sweeping family drama that tells the story of three generations of Chinese Americans, raising questions about identity and what it means to be Real Americans.

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.

About the Book:

Real Americans by Rachel Khong

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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?

Guest Biography:

Rachel Khong

Rachel Khong - Headshot

RACHEL KHONG is the author of Goodbye, Vitamin, winner of the California Book Award for First Fiction, and named a Best Book of the Year by NPR; O, The Oprah Magazine; Vogue; and Esquire. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Cut, The Guardian, The Paris Review, and Tin House. In 2018, she founded The Ruby, a work and event space for women and nonbinary writers and artists in San Francisco’s Mission District. She lives in California.

Readers Club Hosts:

Heather Marie Montilla - Headshot

Heather-Marie Montilla, a dynamic integrative leader, is an educator and nonprofit manager. She has worked in the nonprofit sector and libraries for over two decades, making a positive impact in arts, cultural, educational, and community-building arenas.

Having joined the PBS Books team as their Library Bureau Chief in Fall 2018, Montilla is now the National Director of PBS Books and has interviewed more than 150 writers. In addition, she is a faculty member at Michigan State University and Eastern Michigan University for their Arts and Cultural/Entertainment Management Programs. Having been an Executive Director for 8 years, Heather has a wide range of experience in management, finance, strategic planning, marketing, and fundraising. Heather holds a MPA From Columbia University, a MLIS from Wayne State University, and a bachelor’s from Duke University. She lives in Chicagoland, and is married with four children, a dog, and a bird.

Princess Weekes is an award winning writer and video essayist who works at breaking down the intersections between race, gender, and pop culture. Formally an Assistant Editor at The Mary Sue, co-host of Netflix’s The Geeked Podcast, and co-host and co-writer on the PBS Digital Series It’s Lit. On weekends she works as a bookseller at a local bookstore. When not reading or writing she can be found playing TTRPGs of cuddling with her cat, Lola.

Lauren Smith - Headshot

Executive Producer and host of national PBS programming at Detroit Public TV, Lauren develops content for PBS and other distributors of public media for broadcast, streaming, and other digital channels and has executive-produced and/or produced over 60 national broadcast and programs. Her passion is to develop inspiring, entertaining, and educational content alongside the best national and international talent, and to engage important content with communities across the country. Lauren loves to read and has worked to develop and produce PBS Books content for nearly ten years!

Fred Nahhat is an Emmy Award-winning producer, host, and presenter for Detroit’s PBS station, where he serves as Sr. VP of Production. A 30-year broadcast veteran, Fred has hosted and produced numerous programs for Public TV – including music specials from Il Volo, Celtic Gold and the New Divas – as well as other series and specials “New Year’s Eve with the DSO”, “The Detroit Dream Cruise,” “The PBS Books Readers Club” and “Get Up, Get Out,” among others.

He is a graduate of Wayne State University and a member of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Michigan Chapter, USA Hockey, and Leadership Detroit.

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