A New York Times Editors' Choice
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2016
"Davies writes with a rare emotional resonance and a deft sense of
structure; it's hard not to be in awe of the way he's composed this
complex, beautiful novel . . . Stunning." --NPR
"Davies [is] a master storyteller." --Entertainment Weekly
Sly, funny, intelligent, and artfully structured, The Fortunes recasts
American history through the lives of Chinese Americans and reimagines
the multigenerational novel through the fractures of immigrant family
experience.
Inhabiting four lives--a railroad baron's valet who unwittingly ignites
an explosion in Chinese labor, Hollywood's first Chinese movie star, a
hate-crime victim whose death mobilizes Asian Americans, and a biracial
writer visiting China for an adoption--this novel captures and capsizes
over a century of our history, showing that even as family bonds are
denied and broken, a community can survive--as much through love as
blood.