'What We Were Promised' depicts post-Mao China in a deft debut novel set in Shanghai
Beyond divisions of class, culture, and background, a single African ivory bracelet connects a Chinese American ex-pat family, their staff who enable their (over)privileged lives, and their left-behind Chinese families in Lucy Tan’s intriguing, Shanghai-set debut novel, . When the emblematic bracelet goes missing, two maids, Sunny and Rose, fall under suspicion as they were the last to access the Zhen home, a luxurious apartment in a fully-serviced residence hotel in Shanghai. After earning a graduate degree from
