Unpassing

A searing debut novel that explores community, identity and the myth of the American dream through an immigrant family in AlaskaIn Chia-Chia Lin's debut novel, THE UNPASSING, we meet a Taiwanese immigrant family of six struggling to make ends meet on the outskirts of Anchorage, Alaska. The father, hardworking but beaten down, is employed as a plumber and repairman, while the mother, a loving, strong-willed, and unpredictably emotional matriarch, holds the house together. When ten-year-old Gavin contracts meningitis at school, he falls into a deep, nearly fatal coma.

He wakes up a week later to learn that his little sister Ruby was infected, too. She did not survive. Routine takes over for the grieving family: the siblings care for each other as they befriend a neighboring family and explore the woods; distance grows between the parents as they deal with their loss separately.

But things spiral when the father, increasingly guilt ridden after Ruby's death, is sued for not properly installing a septic tank, wh