Far away, the sun is setting over the desert. The sky behind it deepens to royal blue. Under this there lies an infamous and extraordinary city, and near the city’s edge stands the New World Hotel, a glowing palace of debt and fancy.
When it’s well past dark, a Chinese woman leaves the hotel through the side door of the lobby, skirting the cars lining up for valet parking. She’s a plain woman, with canniness and discernment in her gaze; she could be anywhere between thirty-five and fifty. She strolls down the strip, past a kaleidoscope of lights. She passes sparkling trees, reindeer, sleighs laden with gifts, life-sized, psychedelic gingerbread houses. There are also palaces, monuments to what she knows are lesser desires: fake country villages, fake European landmarks, false worlds. But the art inside the New World Hotel is real. There is a Constable, a Shishkin, and, she’s almost sure of it, a Brueghel the Younger.
She walks to the hotel almost every day. It’s possible to go inside and view real paintings. To win a little money, stroll the sculpture garden, then slip out and make her way down to the anonymous room where she is living. This city, more than anywhere she’s been, is a mix of exaggeration and routine. Every day, the same and new. In the mornings, sunrise. There is a world here, and there’s the underbelly of the world. There is the desert, where it’s possible to bury the past in shifting sands. Her father would have loved this.
She glances down at her finger, at the green jade glowing faintly in the dusk. Seen through the window, abandoned on the counter. In the end, the ring was easy to reclaim. She’d simply slipped through the back door, into the kitchen with the stealth of a cat. She has the ring now, and she has her birthright. She has her real name: Chao Ru.
She came to America resolved to make herself an orphan. In doing so, in carrying out her plan, she found a family. Deep in the interior, toiling at that shabby restaurant with its neon sign: there, she found three brothers. She has no desire to call or write to them. But it’s something to know they exist, living their own flawed, desirous lives. That her blood is shared. The blood of the thief, the pioneer and the marauder, the yearner and the usurper.
She looks out at the desert and its dream of tranquility.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As a writer tunneling through midlife—as a mother, administrator, and teacher—I would have found it impossible to complete this novel without the support of the residencies that hosted me generously and repeatedly despite my not showing many external signs of creative progress. My profound gratitude goes to these organizations and the people who make them possible: the American Academy in Berlin, which generously supported this project in its later stages; the Corporation of Yaddo, especially its leader Elaina Richardson; MacDowell and the James Baldwin Library; and my Midwest residence-away-from-home, Ragdale, especially Jeff Meeuwsen, Amy Sinclair, Laura Kramer, and Chef Linda Williams. Many thanks to Write On, Door County, and director Jerod Santek. I owe much to the radical hospitality of Hedgebrook and its founder, Nancy Skinner Nordhoff, as well as Vito Zingarelli and Amy Wheeler.
The Iowa Writers’ Workshop has been a truly meaningful place to work for the last fifteen years. I am extremely lucky to have the luxury of working with Sasha Khmelnik, a literary and tactical genius who is brilliantly and diplomatically guiding the program toward modernity. I am profoundly grateful to Connie Brothers, an extraordinary person, for our daily conversations over many years. Many thanks to Deb West and Janice Zenisek for saving my skin on countless occasions; and to Kelly A. Smith and Leah Agne. Many thanks to Charles D’Ambrosio, James Galvin, and Mark Levine for serving as Acting Director. I’m also indebted to my superb colleagues Jamel Brinkley, Ethan Canin, Ayana Mathis, Tracie Morris, Marilynne Robinson, Elizabeth Willis, and especially Margot Livesey.
The University of Iowa made it possible for me to complete this novel. I am deeply thankful to CLAS deans for supporting my writing: Linda Maxson, Raúl Curto, Joe Kearney, Steve Goddard, Sara Sanders, and Roland Racevskis. I owe much to the provosts of the last fifteen years, especially Barry Butler and Kevin Kregel. I appreciate Carol and Gary Fethke for their support of the Workshop and its writers. I am indebted to the support of Bruce and Mary Harreld. I would also like to give profound thanks to the University of Iowa Center for Advancement, where the inspiring Lynette Marshall and Jane Van Voorhis work to provide stability for our program and its faculty. Generous friends of the Workshop have made it possible for faculty to write, especially the Meta Rosenberg Foundation, Marly and Laura Rydson, and Mitchell Burgess and Robin Green. I appreciate the support and friendship of Louise and Alan Schwartz of the Truman Capote Literary Trust.
Iowa City has been a home to me and my family for fifteen years. I would like to thank our beautiful independent bookstore, Prairie Lights, and its owner, Jan Weismiller. I’m also grateful for the Preucil School of Music, Willowwind School, and the Iowa City Community School District. Thank you, Iowa City Parks Commission, for unanimously approving the naming of James Alan McPherson Park.
I owe much to the community at the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers, where I first heard Charles Baxter’s lecture about writing a scene in which a character shouts that he wants a cup of coffee. Many thanks to Debra Allbery, Peter Turchi, and C. J. Hribal. I am grateful to Debra Spark and David Haynes, who read early versions of this novel and provided important feedback.
Warmest gratitude to the community at the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, where patient attendees have heard me read from this novel-in-progress half a dozen times. Thanks especially to Angela Pneuman, Andrea Bewick, Nan Cohen, Anne Matlack Evans, Iris Jamahl Dunkle, Catherine Thorpe, and Charlotte Wyatt; and to Andy Weinberger at Readers’ Books of Sonoma. I also appreciate wonderful time spent at Aspen Words, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Tin House Summer Workshop, and Kundiman.