A Year in Reading: Tony Tulathimutte

Year in Reading
December 2, 2016

This year I read the manuscript for Jenny Zhang’s upcoming debut story collection Sour Heart. It’s both about young immigrant girls growing up in New York in the wake of the Cultural Revolution, and a mind-blanching raunch fest that includes schoolgirl torture fantasies, prepubescent sexual assault, and benevolent vomit-eating. I’ve never read a book that so utterly ethers, all at once, the pious stereotypes of immigrant narratives, the Chinese model minority, and familial love — and if you can believe it, it’s also warmly doting and uncheesy (We Asians tend to be lactose intolerant). The content will not be news to fans of her poetry, but I’m looking forward to seeing pearls clutched nationwide when it drops Fall 2017 as the lead title at Random House’s Lenny imprint. You can’t unread it, but you will reread it.

More from A Year in Reading 2016

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Don’t miss: A Year in Reading 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005

’s novel Private Citizens was called “the first great millennial novel” by New York Magazine. A graduate of Stanford University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has written for The New York Times, VICE, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, the New Republic, N+1, Playboy, the Paris Review, and many others. He has received an O. Henry Award and a MacDowell Fellowship, and appeared as a guest on Late Night with Seth Meyers.

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