Family Trust: A Novel / Wang, Kathy

NAMED ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF THE FALL BY

The Washington Post • Elle.com • Buzzfeed •Entertainment Weekly • Bustle •The Globe and Mail • Apartment Therapy • Town & Country • Harper's Bazaar

“American literature knows family about as well as anything else....By now the clichés write themselves. Yet debut author Kathy Wang confidently leans into them, spicing up old stories — the tense reunions and fatal betrayals and dying fathers — with fresh faces.” (Entertainment Weekly) 

Meet Stanley Huang: father, husband, ex-husband, man of unpredictable tastes and temper, aficionado of all-inclusive vacations and bargain luxury goods, newly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Meet Stanley's family: son Fred, frustrated that his years of academic striving (Harvard MBA!) haven't protected him from career stagnation; daughter Kate, balancing a capricious boss, a distracted husband, and two small children; ex-wife Linda, familiar with and suspicious of Stanley's grandiose ways; and second wife Mary, giver of foot rubs and ego massages. 

For years, Stanley has insistently claimed that he's worth a small fortune. Now, as the Huangs come to terms with Stanley's approaching death, they are also starting to fear that Stanley's "small fortune" may be more "small" than "fortune." A "study in the difference between expectation and reality" (npr.org), a bittersweet rumination on what we owe our families, and a sharp-eyed look at Silicon Valley's culture of excess, Family Trust is a "dryly cynical" (Globe and Mail) satire of the American dream.