Winner of the National Book Award
A New York Times Bestseller
"The queer romance we’ve been waiting for.”—Ms. Magazine
Seventeen-year-old Lily Hu can't remember exactly when the feeling took root—that desire to look, to move closer, to touch. Whenever it started growing, it definitely bloomed the moment she and Kathleen Miller walked under the flashing neon sign of a lesbian bar called the Telegraph Club. Suddenly everything seemed possible.
But America in 1954 is not a safe place for two girls to fall in love, especially not in Chinatown. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. With deportation looming over her father—despite his hard-won citizenship—Lily and Kath risk everything to let their love see the light of day.
Acclaimed author of Ash Malinda Lo returns with her most personal and ambitious novel yet, a gripping story of love and duty set in San Francisco's Chinatown during the Red Scare.
"Do you hear me? Everyone knows you're a good Chinese girl. This is just a mistake."
For Lily Hu, "good Chinese girl" feels like a mask she's only recently discovered she's been wearing. Or worse, like a trap--one that finally sprung the night she walked through the door into the Telegraph Club with Kathleen Miller. She's known Kath since they were first in math together in junior high. Now they're the last two senior girls in advanced math, and Lily can't deny that what she feels with Kath is about much more than calculus.
For most people, the Telegraph Club is only another dingy lesbian nightclub just beyond the border of Chinatown, but for Lily and Kath it might as well be another planet.
Balancing her family's need to present an ideal American facade with her unmistakeable desire for Kath would never be easy, but with deportation suddenly looming over her her Chinese-born father--despite his hard-won citizenship--Lily's awakening to her true self seems doomed to be short-lived.
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