A Quitter’s Paradise
A Quitter’s Paradise is a glorious, pondering, heartbreaking, extremely funny, VERY special book. In Eleanor and her family, Elysha Chang has created captivating characters, who continuously surprised, delighted, and intrigued me—so much so that I didn’t want to leave them. I couldn’t be more honored to be working with the extraordinarily talented Elysha Chang.”
- Sarah Jessica Parker , SJP Lit
An NPR Critics Summer Pick • A Good Morning America Pick of the Month • A Michelle Obama’s Reach Higher Summer Reading List Pick • A Good Reads Big Buzz Debut • A Tertulia Staff Pick of the Month
In A Quitter’s Paradise, the darkly humorous debut by bold, new voice Elysha Chang, a young woman does everything she can to ignore her mother’s death, even as unearthed family secrets become increasingly inextricable from her own.
ISBN
9781638930525
Language
English
Page count
336
Edition
Hardcover
Sale date
June 6, 2023
Dimensions
5.5 x 8.25
About the Book
In A Quitter’s Paradise, the darkly humorous debut by bold, new voice Elysha Chang, a young woman does everything she can to ignore her mother’s death, even as unearthed family secrets become increasingly inextricable from her own.
Eleanor is doing just fine. Yes, she’s keeping secrets from her husband. Sure, she quit her PhD program and is now conducting unauthorized research on illegitimately procured mice. And, true, her mother is dead, and Eleanor has yet to go through her things. But what else is she supposed to do? What shape can grief take when you didn’t understand the person you’ve lost?
Resisting at every turn, Eleanor tumbles blindly down a path toward confronting her present. As Eleanor’s avoidance of her feelings results in a series of outrageous—often hilarious—choices, her actions begin to threaten all she holds most dear. Meanwhile, glimpses of Eleanor’s childhood and family history in Taiwan unfurl, revealing long-held secrets, and Eleanor starts to realize that she will never be able to escape her grief, or her family, despite her wildest attempts. But will she be brave enough to withstand the reckoning she’s hurtling toward?
At once disarmingly provocative and compulsively readable, A Quitter’s Paradise is an unexpectedly funny study of the beauty and contradictions of grief, family bonds, and self-knowledge, exploring the ways we unwittingly guard the secrets of our loved ones, even from ourselves.
Reviews
“Compelling . . . Studded with sublime wit.”
“[A] sweeping family saga . . . Exploring the intersections of love and obligation, duty and commitment, the independence of new lifestyles and the appeal of old traditions, Chang’s novel will appeal to fans of Helen Fisher’s Faye Faraway and Tracey Lien’s All That’s Left Unsaid.”
“A drolly comedic tale . . . reminiscent of Rachel Khong’s Goodbye, Vitamin and Weike Wang’s Chemistry.”
“With tenderness and humor, Elysha Chang . . . [asks] what it means for a first-generation daughter to stop striving, to want a meaningful life on different terms. A riveting, wise, and singular novel about grief, love, longing, and the mysteries of family, A Quitter’s Paradise will linger in your heart and mind.”
“Strange and wonderful.”
“A highly enjoyable read… written in a funny style.”
“This is a deep, propulsive, poignant and unflinching portrayal of a family in all of its mystery. Elysha Chang writes with remarkable precision, humor and grace, while knowing full well there are no easy answers when it comes to love and grief.”
“A masterpiece that wrangles several lifetimes of wisdom, loss and heartbreak into a slim novel you can clutch to your chest, pass on to your sharpest, most mercurial friends and say: read this, feel this!”
“A bittersweet family saga about a young woman from a second generation immigrant family coping with her mother’s death.”
Elysha Chang
Elysha Chang is a writer and educator based in Brooklyn, and has taught creative writing at Blue Stoop Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, and Villanova University. A graduate of Columbia’s MFA Program, she has received fellowships from The Center for Fiction and Kundiman. Her short works explore otherness, displaced desire, and the Asian American experience. These works have been published in Center for Fiction Magazine, Fence, GQ, The Rumpus, and others. A Quitter’s Paradise is her first novel.
