My Other Heart
A Novel
A mother's missing child, a search for identity, and ever-changing notions of “home”—class and race intersect with belonging in this stunning debut novel of mothers, daughters, and best friends.
In June 2000, Mimi Truang is on her way home to Vietnam when her toddler daughter vanishes in the Philadelphia airport.
Seventeen years later, two best friends graduate from high school in the WASP-y town of Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania. Kit is half-Japanese, half-American, and interracially adopted by white well-to-do parents. Sabrina is the daughter of a Chinese immigrant single mother who brandishes strict household rules to hide her own secrets.
During that last summer before college, Kit travels to Tokyo, determined to uncover her Japanese identity. Her dizzying weeks in Tokyo offer her a…