Description

An original, raw, and wild novel that has held its power and demands to be read. –Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer Finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction and Winner of the American Book Award Jessica Hagedorn is the recipient of The Before Columbus Foundation s 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award A classic and influential story centered on the cultural and political stakes of life in Marcos-era Philippines

One of The Atlantic s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Welcome to Manila in the turbulent period of the Philippines late dictator. It is a world in which American pop culture and local Filipino tradition mix flamboyantly, and gossip, storytelling, and extravagant behavior thrive. A wildly disparate group of characters–including movie stars and waiters, a young junkie and the richest man in the Philippines–becomes ensnared in a spiral of events culminating in a beauty pageant, a film festival, and an assassination. At the center of this maelstrom is Rio, a feisty schoolgirl who will grow up to live in America and look back with longing on the land of her youth.