Days of distraction : a novel

Title:

Author:

Chang, Alexandra, 1988- author.

Personal Author:

Chang, Alexandra, 1988- author.

ISBN:

9780062951809

Edition:

First edition.

Physical Description:

312 pages ; 22 cm

Abstract:

"The plan is to leave. As for how, when, to where, and even why--she doesn't know yet. So begins a journey for the twenty-four-year-old narrator of Days of Distraction. As a staff writer at a prestigious tech publication, she reports on the achievements of smug Silicon Valley billionaires and start-up bros while her own request for a raise gets bumped from manager to manager. When her long-time boyfriend, J, desides to move to a quiet upstate New York town for grad school, she sees an excuse to cut and run. Moving is meant to be a grand gesture of her commitment to J and a way to reshape her sense of self. But in the process, she finds herself facing misgivings about her role in an interracial relationship. Captivated by the stories of her ancestors and other Asian Americans in history, she must confront a question at the core of her identitiy: How do you exist in a society that does not notice or understand you?"-- Provided by publisher.

Subject Term:

Women journalists -- Fiction.

Interracial dating -- Fiction.

Asian Americans -- Fiction.

Man-woman relationships -- Fiction.

Moving, Household -- Fiction.

Genre:

Bildungsromans.

Humorous fiction.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Belmont	Book	FICTION CHANG	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Ginter Park	Book	FICTION CHANG	Searching... Unknown
Searching... West End	Book	FICTION CHANG	Searching... Unknown

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On Order

Summary

"Startlingly original and deeply moving.... Chang here establishes herself as one of the most important of the new generation of American writers." -- George Saunders

A Recommended Book From

Buzzfeed * TIME * USA Today * NPR * Vanity Fair * The Washington Post * New York Magazine * O, the Oprah Magazine * Parade * Wired * Electric Literature * The Millions * San Antonio Express-News * Domino * Kirkus

A wry, tender portrait of a young woman--finally free to decide her own path, but unsure if she knows herself well enough to choose wisely--from a captivating new literary voice

The plan is to leave. As for how, when, to where, and even why--she doesn't know yet. So begins a journey for the twenty-four-year-old narrator of Days of Distraction. As a staff writer at a prestigious tech publication, she reports on the achievements of smug Silicon Valley billionaires and start-up bros while her own request for a raise gets bumped from manager to manager. And when her longtime boyfriend, J, decides to move to a quiet upstate New York town for grad school, she sees an excuse to cut and run.

Moving is supposed to be a grand gesture of her commitment to J and a way to reshape her sense of self. But in the process, she finds herself facing misgivings about her role in an interracial relationship. Captivated by the stories of her ancestors and other Asian Americans in history, she must confront a question at the core of her identity: What does it mean to exist in a society that does not notice or understand you?

Equal parts tender and humorous, and told in spare but powerful prose, Days of Distraction is an offbeat coming-of-adulthood tale, a touching family story, and a razor-sharp appraisal of our times.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

A coming-of-age tale for the 21st century."People think I'm smaller than I am." This is the opening sentence of Chang's debut andas the reader soon learnsa sly summation of the novel as a whole. A first-generation American and the daughter of Chinese parents, the unnamed narrator finds that people frequently see in her what they expect rather than what she is. But, more often than not, she shrinks herself to fit these misperceptions. She stays silent when her boyfriend, J, calls her his "little sweetheart." She gives up trying to teach J how to pronounce the family nickname that he insists on using. At worka tech publicationshe chooses not to press the point when her superiors refuse to seriously discuss giving her a raise when she discovers that she's earning less than all of her colleagues. Even in a world in which social media lets ordinary people become extraordinary, the protagonist asserts that she is quite simply ordinarya consumer of other peoples' lives, not the creator of one. J's decision to enter a graduate program in upstate New York gives her the chance to leave the high-pressure microcosm of San Francisco and start again. Chang has won acclaim for her short stories, and, stylistically, her debut novel can be seen as a collection of linked microfictions. The text is composed of brief vignettes and the narrative is discursive, but this does not mean that the story feels choppy or disjointed. Instead, the novel's form encourages the reader to slow down, think about what they've just read, and figure out for themselves how the pieces fit together. The narrator's meditations on themes like racism, capitalism, the role of technology in our lives, and complicated family relationships are simultaneously uniquely insightful and accessible to anyone who has grappled with these issues themselves.Beautifully crafted and deeply thoughtful. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.