Map for the Missing

An epic, mesmerizing debut novel set against a rapidly changing post Cultural Revolution China, A Map for the Missing reckons with the costs of pursuing one s dreams and the lives we leave behindTang Yitian has been living in America for almost a decade when he receives an urgent phone call from his mother: his father has disappeared from the family s rural village in China. When Yitian attempts to piece together what may have happened, he struggles to navigate China s impenetrable bureaucracy as an outsider, and his mother s evasiveness only deepens the mystery. Though they have been estranged for years, Yitian promises to come home.

As a teenager, Hanwen was sent down from Shanghai to Yitian s village as part of the country s rustication campaign. So he seeks out a childhood friend who may be in a position to help: Tian Hanwen, the only other person who shared Yitian s desire to pursue a life of knowledge. Young and in love, they dreamed of attending university in the city together.

But when their plans resulted in a terrible tragedy, their paths diverged, and while Yitian ended up a professor in America, Hanwen was left behind, resigned to life as a midlevel bureaucrat s wealthy housewife. Reuniting for the first time as adults, Yitian and Hanwen embark on the search for Yitian s father, all the while grappling with the past who Yitian s father really was, and what might have been. Spanning the late 1970s to 1990s and moving effortlessly between rural provinces and big cities, A Map for the Missing is a deeply felt examination of family and forgiveness, and the meaning of home.