Tuesday, 6:00 pm EDT June 1, 2021
Online via Zoom
Tom Lin’s The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu reimagines the classic Western through the eyes of a Chinese American assassin on a quest to rescue his kidnapped wife. Author Jonathan Lethem says that the novel has “the atmosphere of Cormac McCarthy’s West or that of the Coen brothers’ True Grit.” This timely debut diversifies the stories told about the American West and arrives as the United States sees a horrific rise in the number of hate crimes directed at members of this country’s Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander communities.
Lin will discuss the launch of the novel with Wayne Ho, president and CEO of the Chinese-American Planning Council, the country’s largest Asian American social services agency.
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In Conversation
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Tom Lin
Tom Lin
Tom Lin was born in China and immigrated to the United States when he was four. A graduate of Pomona College, he is currently in the PhD program at the University of California, Davis. This is his first novel.
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Wayne Ho
Wayne Ho
Wayne Ho is the President and CEO of the Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC), the nation’s largest Asian American social services agency. With a mission to promote the social and economic empowerment of Chinese American, immigrant, and low-income communities, CPC serves over 60,000 community members in the areas of education, family support, and community and economic empowerment at 35 locations throughout New York City. Since the pandemic started, CPC has led a recovery platform for Asian American neighborhoods, spoken out against the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes, advocated for hazard pay and PPE for essential workers in the human services sector, distributed over $1.25 million and nearly 100,000 meals to community members, and been quoted in over 150 news stories. Wayne received his Bachelor of Arts from UC Berkeley and his Master in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
Featured Book
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The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu
By Tom Lin
Published by Little, Brown and Company
An astounding debut that reimagines the classic Western through the eyes of a Chinese American assassin on a quest to rescue his kidnapped wife and exact his revenge on her abductors, and “declares the arrival of an astonishing new voice” (Jonathan Lethem).
Orphaned young, Ming Tsu, the son of Chinese immigrants, is raised by the notorious leader of a California crime syndicate, who trains him to be his deadly enforcer. But when Ming falls in love with Ada, the daughter of a powerful railroad magnate, and the two elope, he seizes the opportunity to escape to a different life. Soon after, in a violent raid, the tycoon’s henchmen kidnap Ada and conscript Ming into service for the Central Pacific Railroad.
Battered, heartbroken, and yet defiant, Ming partners with a blind clairvoyant known only as the prophet. Together the two set out to rescue his wife and to exact revenge on the men who destroyed Ming, aided by a troupe of magic-show performers, some with supernatural powers, whom they meet on the journey. Ming blazes his way across the West, settling old scores with a single-minded devotion that culminates in an explosive and unexpected finale.
Written with the violent ardor of Cormac McCarthy and the otherworldly inventiveness of Ted Chiang, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu is at once a thriller, a romance, and a story of one man’s quest for redemption in the face of a distinctly American brutality.