Transparency (27 page)

In the stunning title story, Henry Liu, convinced that he is dying, receives a second lease on life. In “Garden City,” a weary
Chinese couple, struggling to evict their deadbeat tenant, find themselves forced to confront the aftermath of their teenage
son’s death. And in “The Old Gentleman,” a woman becomes alienated from her father when he finds love—or what he thinks
could
be love—in his old age.

This powerful debut collection—reminiscent of acclaimed works by Gish Jen, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Lara Vapnyar—showcases Frances
Hwang’s myriad gifts as a storyteller as it announces the arrival of an exciting new voice in American fiction.

FRANCES HWANG has been the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award and had held fellowships at the Fine Arts Work
Center in Province town, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, and Colgate University. Two of the stories in
Transparency
were selected by Joyce Carol Oates and Francine Prose to appear in
Best New American Voices.