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Start giftingJoan Is Okay
A Novel
Bookseller recommendation
“Literary fiction with a great wry voice! Just read the beginning of this close first-person narrative and see the world through Joan's eyes. She cuts through all the bulls*** and you get to be this completely idiosyncratic character smashing sexist, cultural, and patriarchal norms. And, it's all deadpan hilarious!”
Em,
A Great Good Place for Books
Bookseller recommendation
“A smart, moving, and entertaining book. Joan is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and an ICU doctor in New York City. There's a pandemic looming, but Joan’s going to be okay. A witty and insightful story.”
Claire Benedict,
Bear Pond Books
Bookseller recommendation
“This book about a doctor navigating work and personal life questions and struggles pre- and post-Covid was reminiscent of Convenience Store Woman and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine but it also felt original and fresh. The main character was believable and lovable and the writing was solid, insightful, funny and moving. I only wished there had been a little more of this book to love, but also liked its sparseness. This might be my favourite book of the year so far!”
Tracey,
Turning the Tide Bookstore
Summary
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A witty, moving, piercingly insightful new novel about a marvelously complicated woman who can’t be anyone but herself, from the award-winning author of Chemistry
LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL • “A deeply felt portrait . . . With gimlet-eyed observation laced with darkly biting wit, Weike Wang masterfully probes the existential uncertainty of being other in America.”—Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, NPR, The Washington Post, Vox
Joan is a thirtysomething ICU doctor at a busy New York City hospital. The daughter of Chinese parents who came to the United States to secure the American dream for their children, Joan is intensely devoted to her work, happily solitary, successful. She does look up sometimes and wonder where her true roots lie: at the hospital, where her white coat makes her feel needed, or with her family, who try to shape her life by their own cultural and social expectations.
Once Joan and her brother, Fang, were established in their careers, her parents moved back to China, hoping to spend the rest of their lives in their homeland. But when Joan’s father suddenly dies and her mother returns to America to reconnect with her children, a series of events sends Joan spiraling out of her comfort zone just as her hospital, her city, and the world are forced to reckon with a health crisis more devastating than anyone could have imagined.
Deceptively spare yet quietly powerful, laced with sharp humor, Joan Is Okay touches on matters that feel deeply resonant: being Chinese-American right now; working in medicine at a high-stakes time; finding one’s voice within a dominant culture; being a woman in a male-dominated workplace; and staying independent within a tight-knit family. But above all, it’s a portrait of one remarkable woman so surprising that you can’t get her out of your head.