Memory Piece
A Novel
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3.4 • 5 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NAMED A VOGUE BEST BOOK OF 2024
"Adventurous. . .gritty and refreshingly girl-centric. . . lingers in the imagination." –The New York Times
“Ko…draws characters with such deftness that they feel wholly alive." –The Washington Post
"It belongs to an American literary tradition that includes Dana Spiotta, George Saunders, and their patron saint, Don DeLillo." –The Atlantic
The award-winning author of The Leavers offers a visionary novel of friendship, art, and ambition that asks: What is the value of a meaningful life?
In the early 1980s, Giselle Chin, Jackie Ong, and Ellen Ng are three teenagers drawn together by their shared sense of alienation and desire for something different. “Allied in the weirdest parts of themselves,” they envision each other as artistic collaborators and embark on a future defined by freedom and creativity.
By the time they are adults, their dreams are murkier. As a performance artist, Giselle must navigate an elite social world she never conceived of. As a coder thrilled by the internet’s early egalitarian promise, Jackie must contend with its more sinister shift toward monetization and surveillance. And as a community activist, Ellen confronts the increasing gentrification and policing overwhelming her New York City neighborhood. Over time their friendship matures and changes, their definitions of success become complicated, and their sense of what matters evolves.
Moving from the predigital 1980s to the art and tech subcultures of the 1990s to a strikingly imagined portrait of the 2040s, Memory Piece is an innovative and audacious story of three lifelong friends as they strive to build satisfying lives in a world that turns out to be radically different from the one they were promised.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Ko (The Leavers) spans past, present, and future with the astute story of three Chinese American women from the New York City tristate area over the course of their lives. As a teen in 1980s suburbia, Giselle Chin knows she wants to be an artist, and that her performance art will provide "a container for the uncertainty and overwhelm of the future." At Chinese language school, she meets Jackie Ong, who's drawn to computers and feels "more kinship to machines" than people. At a party, the two encounter Ellen Ng, who later gets involved in political activism and moves to a community squat in New York City called Sola. As Giselle gains fame in the art world, she wonders whether celebrity will compromise her true vision, and if so, which one she'll have to abandon. Jackie, too, must decide what really matters to her as she attempts to balance integrity and success while creating an online social network just as the internet begins to take off, and Ellen worries Sola will be undone by gentrification. For much of the narrative, the women's individual story lines feel a bit disjointed, but Ko brings them together in a satisfying final act in the 2040s, when America is an authoritarian police state. This is a worthy follow-up to Ko's striking debut.
