Genre Fiction
![Jamie Ford - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_jamie_ford.jpg)
The Many Daughters of Afong Moy: A Novel
A Read With Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick!
"One of the most beautiful books of motherhood and what we pass on to those that come after us." -Jenna Bush Hager
The New York Times bestselling author of the "mesmerizing and evocative" (Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants) Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet returns with a powerful exploration of the love that binds one family across the generations.
Dorothy Moy breaks her own heart for a living.
As Washington's former poet laureate, that's how she describes channeling her dissociative episodes and mental health struggles into her art. But when her five-year-old daughter exhibits similar behavior and begins remembering things from the lives of their ancestors, Dorothy believes the past has truly come to haunt her. Fearing that her child is predestined to endure the same debilitating depression that has marked her own life, Dorothy seeks radical help.
Through an experimental treatment designed to mitigate inherited trauma, Dorothy intimately connects with past generations of women in her family: Faye Moy, a nurse in China serving with the Flying Tigers; Zoe Moy, a student in England at a famous school with no rules; Lai King Moy, a girl quarantined in San Francisco during a plague epidemic; Greta Moy, a tech executive with a unique dating app; and Afong Moy, the first Chinese woman to set foot in America.
As painful recollections affect her present life, Dorothy discovers that trauma isn't the only thing she's inherited. A stranger is searching for her in each time period. A stranger who's loved her through all of her genetic memories. Dorothy endeavors to break the cycle of pain and abandonment, to finally find peace for her daughter, and gain the love that has long been waiting, knowing she may pay the ultimate price.
"One of the most beautiful books of motherhood and what we pass on to those that come after us." -Jenna Bush Hager
The New York Times bestselling author of the "mesmerizing and evocative" (Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants) Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet returns with a powerful exploration of the love that binds one family across the generations.
Dorothy Moy breaks her own heart for a living.
As Washington's former poet laureate, that's how she describes channeling her dissociative episodes and mental health struggles into her art. But when her five-year-old daughter exhibits similar behavior and begins remembering things from the lives of their ancestors, Dorothy believes the past has truly come to haunt her. Fearing that her child is predestined to endure the same debilitating depression that has marked her own life, Dorothy seeks radical help.
Through an experimental treatment designed to mitigate inherited trauma, Dorothy intimately connects with past generations of women in her family: Faye Moy, a nurse in China serving with the Flying Tigers; Zoe Moy, a student in England at a famous school with no rules; Lai King Moy, a girl quarantined in San Francisco during a plague epidemic; Greta Moy, a tech executive with a unique dating app; and Afong Moy, the first Chinese woman to set foot in America.
As painful recollections affect her present life, Dorothy discovers that trauma isn't the only thing she's inherited. A stranger is searching for her in each time period. A stranger who's loved her through all of her genetic memories. Dorothy endeavors to break the cycle of pain and abandonment, to finally find peace for her daughter, and gain the love that has long been waiting, knowing she may pay the ultimate price.
Editorial Reviews
"The Many Daughters of Afong Moy is simply transcendent. The first Chinese woman to set her lotus-bound feet in America is destined to set off a ripple through time and space, as her descendants struggle with her legacy of loss and loneliness. Themes of karma, courage, love, and motherhood weave timelessly through eight generations of women seeking to find balance in an increasingly tempest-racked world. Jamie Ford has outdone himself!" -KATE QUINN, New York Times bestselling author of The Rose Code
"Jamie Ford's army of readers will be thrilled by this amazing new novel, The Many Daughters of Afong Moy, which promises to take them to places they have not been to before. At our house, we enjoyed many nights reading later and later into the evening, and discussing its wonders and surprises." -LUIS ALBERTO URREA, bestselling author of The House of Broken Angels
"Fans of The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet rejoice: Jamie Ford has done it again. The Many Daughters of Afong Moy is a searing and vibrant epic of generational love, trauma, and healing. In his trademark poignant prose, Ford breathes Afong Moy and her descendants to life with dimension and power. This is a book that will stay with readers and reshape how they engage with their own lives and legacies. To read it is to be transformed--and to transcend." -QIAN JULIE WANG, New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Country
"[A] poignant meditation on how we are shaped by those who come before us, as well as an emotional journey through the past and future. Jamie Ford's lyrical writing fills the reader with wonder, possibility, and most of all hope. This story will live inside me forever." -JANET SKESLIEN CHARLES, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Library
"A haunting love story not just for our time but all times, Jamie Ford's The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
"Jamie Ford's army of readers will be thrilled by this amazing new novel, The Many Daughters of Afong Moy, which promises to take them to places they have not been to before. At our house, we enjoyed many nights reading later and later into the evening, and discussing its wonders and surprises." -LUIS ALBERTO URREA, bestselling author of The House of Broken Angels
"Fans of The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet rejoice: Jamie Ford has done it again. The Many Daughters of Afong Moy is a searing and vibrant epic of generational love, trauma, and healing. In his trademark poignant prose, Ford breathes Afong Moy and her descendants to life with dimension and power. This is a book that will stay with readers and reshape how they engage with their own lives and legacies. To read it is to be transformed--and to transcend." -QIAN JULIE WANG, New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Country
"[A] poignant meditation on how we are shaped by those who come before us, as well as an emotional journey through the past and future. Jamie Ford's lyrical writing fills the reader with wonder, possibility, and most of all hope. This story will live inside me forever." -JANET SKESLIEN CHARLES, New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Library
"A haunting love story not just for our time but all times, Jamie Ford's The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
Readers Top Reviews
Jennifer LaraMili
The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford is a story that spans generations and across time. Dorothy Moy channels her dissociative episodes and mental health struggles into her poetry. When her daughter, Annabel, begins to exhibit the same behaviors and starts to remember the lives of their ancestors, Dorothy decides to seek radical help. Not wanting her daughter to suffer from the same depression she does, Dorothy agrees to an experimental treatment designed to weaken inherited trauma. Through this treatment, she connects with past generations of women in her family. From Faye Moy, a nurse in China serving with the Flying Tigers, to Lai King Moy, a girl quarantined in San Francisco during a plague epidemic to Afong Moy, the first Chinese woman to set foot in America. She also discovers that in each time period, someone is looking for her. Someone who has loved her through her genetic memories. Can she break the cycle of pain and find peace for herself and her daughter? The Many Daughters of Afong Moy is a very difficult book to read. Jumping back and forth through time from 1836 to 2085 and five different points of view, the main theme of the story is the idea of epigenetics. Epigenetics is the study of heritable phenotype changes that occur but do not involve alterations to the DNA sequence. In simple terms, it is the study of how behaviors and environment change the way genes work. Even simpler, it is trauma that is passed on like a physical trait. I understand the concept but I feel that it is more family dynamics and behaviors are altered and then passed down rather than through DNA itself. I’ve read other books that use this idea. The jumping back and forth was confusing and disorientating. There was very little opportunity to get an understanding of a character before it was off to another. Overall, I did not enjoy The Many Daughters of Afong Moy even though the premise intrigued me. I do not recommend The Many Daughters of Afong Moy. The Many Daughters of Afong Moy is available in hardcover, eBook, and audiobook
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter 1: Faye 1 Faye
(1942)
Faye Moy signed a contract stating that she would never marry. That's what the American Volunteer Group had required of all female recruits. Though as she sat in the bar of the Kunming Tennis Club, Faye thought that perhaps there should have been an exception made for older nurses. Not that she had any immediate prospects among the thirty young officers who made up the Flying Tigers. It was just that a notarized statement of marital exclusion seemed to hammer home the fact that she'd never been in love. She'd come close once, back in her village near Canton, amid the wilted lilies of her youth. Since then she'd felt many things for many people, but always more yearning than devotion, more appreciation than passion. There had even been an awkwardly arranged marriage proposal a lifetime ago, at the Tou Tou Koi restaurant, where a dashing young man got down on one knee, with a ring, and too much pomade in his hair.
Wasted. That's what her father said when she turned him down. "Fei-jin? Why do you have to be this way? No one likes a stubborn girl."
She'd tried not to roll her eyes. "Why can't you call me Faye like everyone else?"
"Because I'm not everyone else. Look at you. You're not getting any younger. You should be happy someone still wants you at your age."
She'd been twenty-seven.
But as much as Faye had wanted to share her life with someone, to watch a sunset in the arms of somebody who wouldn't leave before sunrise, even then she knew that want was not the same as need. She'd refused to settle for convenience, or to abet her aching loneliness. She went to Lingnan University instead. She told herself that if she stopped looking, eventually the right person would come along.
That was decades ago.
Now she felt like the jigsaw puzzle of her life had long been completed, the picture looked whole, but there was one piece missing.
That's my heart, Faye thought, something extra, unnecessary.
Now well into her fifties, Faye still couldn't forget how in nursing school, Chinese mothers used to point at her as she walked down the street in the evening. They'd turn to their daughters and say, "Don't be disobedient or you'll end up like her," or "That's what happens when you're too proud-too foolish. No one wants you." Faye would pretend she didn't hear. Then she'd run home and curl up in bed, crying herself to sleep. In the morning, she'd light a Chesterfield and stare at the tobacco-stained ceiling, aching inside, as tendrils of smoke drifted upward like unanswered prayers.
To her parents and those mothers on the street, Faye was mei fan neoi zi. Though she didn't feel like an old maid. Even after she arrived in Kunming, where she was twice the age of the American nurses who followed. On the bustling streets of Kunming, Faye was treated differently. Perhaps because she'd served longer and now hardly noticed the suffocating humidity of typhoon season. Or because she didn't scream when field rats crawled their way into her dresser and chewed the buttons off her clothing. Conceivably it was because she was fluent in English thanks to Lai King, her American-born mother, and could quote poetry by Li Bai as well as Gertrude Stein and Oscar Wilde, yet also spend an entire afternoon playing canasta and whist while drinking tiger balms and not let the rum cocktails make her sick for days. Faye learned early on to avoid not only the whiskey the natives made, but especially the gin concocted by Jesuit missionaries.
"You want another?" Faye shook her glass tumbler.
Lois, the latest nursing recruit, a comely blonde from Topeka, looked back, bleary eyed. "Am I supposed to say yes? What is this, some kind of initiation?"
Faye noticed that Lois was slurring her words, so she peered over the recruit's shoulder and made eye contact with the bartender. Faye shook her head, almost imperceptibly so Lois wouldn't catch on, then nodded as the barkeep put his bottle away.
"I don't know why everyone around here drinks so much," Lois said, waving broadly at everyone in the club. "And why do they have to play such sad music?"
Faye listened to the jukebox as Frank Sinatra sang "I'll Never Smile Again." She thought about the flashes of light on the horizon each night, the peals of thunder. Followed by the rumble of pony carts on cobbled streets in the morning and the wailing of widows as refugees flooded through the city's arched gates.
"It comes with the territory," Faye said as she worried about her parents, whom she hadn't heard from in two years.
S...
(1942)
Faye Moy signed a contract stating that she would never marry. That's what the American Volunteer Group had required of all female recruits. Though as she sat in the bar of the Kunming Tennis Club, Faye thought that perhaps there should have been an exception made for older nurses. Not that she had any immediate prospects among the thirty young officers who made up the Flying Tigers. It was just that a notarized statement of marital exclusion seemed to hammer home the fact that she'd never been in love. She'd come close once, back in her village near Canton, amid the wilted lilies of her youth. Since then she'd felt many things for many people, but always more yearning than devotion, more appreciation than passion. There had even been an awkwardly arranged marriage proposal a lifetime ago, at the Tou Tou Koi restaurant, where a dashing young man got down on one knee, with a ring, and too much pomade in his hair.
Wasted. That's what her father said when she turned him down. "Fei-jin? Why do you have to be this way? No one likes a stubborn girl."
She'd tried not to roll her eyes. "Why can't you call me Faye like everyone else?"
"Because I'm not everyone else. Look at you. You're not getting any younger. You should be happy someone still wants you at your age."
She'd been twenty-seven.
But as much as Faye had wanted to share her life with someone, to watch a sunset in the arms of somebody who wouldn't leave before sunrise, even then she knew that want was not the same as need. She'd refused to settle for convenience, or to abet her aching loneliness. She went to Lingnan University instead. She told herself that if she stopped looking, eventually the right person would come along.
That was decades ago.
Now she felt like the jigsaw puzzle of her life had long been completed, the picture looked whole, but there was one piece missing.
That's my heart, Faye thought, something extra, unnecessary.
Now well into her fifties, Faye still couldn't forget how in nursing school, Chinese mothers used to point at her as she walked down the street in the evening. They'd turn to their daughters and say, "Don't be disobedient or you'll end up like her," or "That's what happens when you're too proud-too foolish. No one wants you." Faye would pretend she didn't hear. Then she'd run home and curl up in bed, crying herself to sleep. In the morning, she'd light a Chesterfield and stare at the tobacco-stained ceiling, aching inside, as tendrils of smoke drifted upward like unanswered prayers.
To her parents and those mothers on the street, Faye was mei fan neoi zi. Though she didn't feel like an old maid. Even after she arrived in Kunming, where she was twice the age of the American nurses who followed. On the bustling streets of Kunming, Faye was treated differently. Perhaps because she'd served longer and now hardly noticed the suffocating humidity of typhoon season. Or because she didn't scream when field rats crawled their way into her dresser and chewed the buttons off her clothing. Conceivably it was because she was fluent in English thanks to Lai King, her American-born mother, and could quote poetry by Li Bai as well as Gertrude Stein and Oscar Wilde, yet also spend an entire afternoon playing canasta and whist while drinking tiger balms and not let the rum cocktails make her sick for days. Faye learned early on to avoid not only the whiskey the natives made, but especially the gin concocted by Jesuit missionaries.
"You want another?" Faye shook her glass tumbler.
Lois, the latest nursing recruit, a comely blonde from Topeka, looked back, bleary eyed. "Am I supposed to say yes? What is this, some kind of initiation?"
Faye noticed that Lois was slurring her words, so she peered over the recruit's shoulder and made eye contact with the bartender. Faye shook her head, almost imperceptibly so Lois wouldn't catch on, then nodded as the barkeep put his bottle away.
"I don't know why everyone around here drinks so much," Lois said, waving broadly at everyone in the club. "And why do they have to play such sad music?"
Faye listened to the jukebox as Frank Sinatra sang "I'll Never Smile Again." She thought about the flashes of light on the horizon each night, the peals of thunder. Followed by the rumble of pony carts on cobbled streets in the morning and the wailing of widows as refugees flooded through the city's arched gates.
"It comes with the territory," Faye said as she worried about her parents, whom she hadn't heard from in two years.
S...
