The Brightest Star, Paperback, Gail Tsukiyama

HarperVia

A LIBRARYREADS PICK AND BEST BOOK CLUB PICK OF 2023 A writer of astonishing grace, delicacy, and feeling. Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prizewinning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and ClayA beautiful, haunting book. Karen Joy Fowler, New York Times bestselling author of Booth and We Are All Completely Beside OurselvesThe beloved bestselling author of The Color of Air, Women of the Silk, and The Samurais Garden returns with this magnificent historical novel based on the life of the luminous, groundbreaking actress Anna May Wongthe first and only Asian American woman to gain movie stardom in the early days of Hollywood. At the dawn of a new century, America is falling in love with silent movies, including young Wong Liu Tsong. The daughter of Chinese immigrants who own a laundry, Wong Liu and her older sister Lew Ying (Lulu) are taunted and bullied for their Chinese heritage. But while Lulu diligently obeys her parents and learns to speak Chinese, Wong Liu sneaks away to the local nickelodeons, buying a ticket with her lunch money and tips saved from laundry deliveries. By eleven Wong Liu is determined to become an actress and has already chosen a stage name Anna May Wong. At sixteen, Anna May leaves high school to pursue her Hollywood dreams, defying her disapproving father and her Chinese traditional upbringinga choice that will hold emotional and physical consequences. After a series of nothing parts, nineteenyearold Anna May gets her big breakand her first taste of... | Gail Tsukiyama Brightest Star, The Paperback Book