The Unpassing: A Novel

Finalist for the NBCC John Leonard Prize for Best First Book

Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

A Taiwanese immigrant family of six struggles to make ends meet on the outskirts of Anchorage, Alaska. The hardworking father is employed as a plumber and repairman, while the mother, an unpredictably emotional matriarch, holds the house together. When ten-year-old Gavin contracts meningitis, he falls into a nearly fatal coma. He wakes up a week later to learn that his little sister Ruby was infected, too. She did not survive.

Routine takes over for the grieving family: the siblings care for each other and befriend a neighboring family; distance grows between the parents as they deal with their loss separately. But things spiral when the father, guilt ridden after Ruby's death, is sued for not properly installing a septic tank, which results in grave harm to a little boy. In the ensuing chaos, what really happened to Ruby finally emerges.

With flowing prose evoking the Alaskan wilderness's terrifying beauty, Lin explores the fallout after the loss of a child and the way in which a family is forced to grieve in a place that doesn't yet feel like home. Emotionally raw and subtly suspenseful, The Unpassing is a deeply felt family saga that dismisses the American dream for a harsher, but ultimately more profound, reality.