Coyoteland - by Vanessa Hua (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

From the bestselling author of A River of Stars comes a funny, heartfelt novel set in an affluent Bay Area suburb where a Chinese American family moves in and sets off a series of scandals, for fans of Celeste Ng and Emma Straub

Living in El Nido, a privileged community in the hills east of Berkeley, is supposed to mean you've made it. So when Jin Chang moves there with his wife and daughters after years of scraping by, he hopes it will finally be the end of his bad luck. What his family doesn't know is that he's bending the rules for one final scheme: to make it big in real estate. Next door, Blair Belle prides herself on her progressive politics. After all, she treats their new nanny, Ana Rodriguez, and her daughter like family--even if she doesn't know them all that well. But she can't help but feel skeptical of the new neighbors, especially when she begins to suspect that Jin's plans might interfere with the Belle's own luxury development.

Jin's teenage daughter Jane can tell her dad is keeping a secret, but she's also struggling to navigate El Nido's cliques. Tasha Washington has always felt isolated, too, as one of the only Black girls at the school. In the wake of a coyote attack, Jane and Tasha bond. Together, they hatch a plot to expose the town's hypocrisies. The shockwaves will rock their own families. As fire season escalates, and the roaming coyote continues to unleash chaos, the characters become embroiled in a series of scandals that will change El Nido--and their own fates--forever.

Urgent, riveting, and deeply heartfelt, full of sharp wit and keen empathy, Coyoteland is at once a delicious suburban drama and an unflinching exploration of our current moment.

Review Quotes

"Swift, surprising, and wholly captivating, Coyoteland asks vital questions about race, class, and what it takes to truly belong. In training a discerning eye on one small, close-knit community, Vanessa Hua opens up an entire world. A tour de force from one of my all-time favorite writers, working at the very peak of her talents."
--Kirstin Chen, New York Times bestselling author of Counterfeit

"Coyoteland is the novel to make us remember that we're all foragers in the wild: humans wanting success and power and love and always wanting home; animals searching for food and survival. This convergence of many souls trying to make their way is a classic novel, in a California that Vanessa Hua limns with delicacy, precision, and the deep knowledge of an iconic place."
--Susan Straight, National Book Award finalist and author of Mecca

"No one writes like Vanessa Hua. With power, grace, and profound insight, Hua brings to life a community that--like the rest of today's fraught world, and whether all of its inhabitants acknowledge it or not--is in a state of ongoing crisis. A tremendous, mesmerizing gift from this one-of-a-kind storyteller."--R. O. Kwon, nationally bestselling author of Exhibit

"Coyoteland pulses with the urgency of this moment yet guides with an ageless understanding of the human heart. With characters so tenderly drawn they'll feel like family and struggles so credible you'll mistake them for your own, this is one you'll want to devour but which deserves to be savored. Propulsive, engrossing, and wise, it is a perfect homage to the pandemic era."
--Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, author of On the Rooftop, a Reese's Book Club Pick

About the Author

Vanessa Hua is the author of the national bestselling novels A River of Stars and Forbidden City, as well as the story collection Deceit and Other Possibilities, a New York Times Editors' Pick. A National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, she has also received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and a Steinbeck Fellowship, as well as awards from the de Groot Foundation, Society of Professional Journalists and the Asian American Journalists Association. She was a finalist for the California Book Award, Northern California Book Award, and New American Voices Award. A former longtime columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, her award-winning work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. She teaches at the Warren Wilson MFA Program and elsewhere. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.