Memory Piece

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. Agent: Ayesha Pande, Pande Literary. (Mar.)