Author Description

Product Description Sixty-eight-year-old Hattie Kong, descendant of Confucius, daughter of an American missionary, has lived to see both her husband and her best friend die back-to-back in a single year: ''It was like having twins... She got to book the same church with the same pianist for both funerals and did think she should have gotten some sort of twofer from the crematorium.'' But two years later, it's time for Hattie to start over. She moves to a small New England town where she is soon joined by a Cambodian American family and an ex-lover -- now a retired neuroscientist -- all of them looking for their own new lives. What Hattie makes of this situation and of the changing town of Riverlake -- challenged as it is, in 2001, by fundamentalist Christians, struggling family farms, and unexpected immigrants -- lies at the center of a novel that asks deep and absorbing questions about religion, home, and what ''worlds'' we make of the world. Moving, humorous, and broad-ranging, World and Town is rich in character and brilliantly evocative of its time and place. This is a masterful novel from one of our most admired writers. Review ''Jen unwinds another expansive story of identity and acceptance, deploying voices that are as haunting and revealing as they are original... Jen's prose is unique, dense, and enthralling, and her characters are marvels of authenticity.'' --Publishers Weekly (starred review) About the Author GISH JEN is the author of three previous novels and a collection of stories. She is the recipient of numerous honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Radcliffe Institute fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, and a Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is a graduate of Harvard University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop.