Deceit and Other Possibilities

In this powerful debut collection, Vanessa Hua gives voice to immigrant families navigating a new America. Tied to their ancestral and adopted homelands in ways unimaginable in generations past, these memorable characters straddle both worlds but belong to none.

From a Hong Kong movie idol fleeing a sex scandal, to an obedient daughter turned Stanford imposter, to a Chinatown elder summoned to his village, to a Korean-American pastor with a secret agenda, the characters in these ten stories vividly illustrate the conflict between self and society, tradition and change. In What We Have is What We Need, winner of The Atlantic student fiction prize, a boy from Mexico reunites with his parents in San Francisco. When he suspects his mother has found love elsewhere, he fights to keep his family together.

With insight and wit, she writes about what wounds us and what we must survive. Her searing stories explore the clash of cultures and the complex, always shifting allegiances that we carry in ourselves, our family, and our community. Deceit and Other Possibilities marks the emergence of a remarkable new writer.

"Fast-paced, dazzling, smart, and fun, Vanessa Hua’s debut collection illustrates the insanities and heartbreaks on both sides of the Pacific." Gary Shteyngart, author of Little Failure and Super Sad True Love Story

Vanessa Hua has appeared in The Atlantic, New York Times, FRONTLINE/World, Washington Post, and elsewhere. Previously, she was a staff writer at the San Francisco Chronicle, and has filed stories from China, South Korea, Panama, Burma and Ecuador. She received a 2015 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, the San Francisco Foundation’s Phelan Award for Fiction, and is a former Steinbeck Fellow in Fiction at San Jose State University. Her novel, A River of Stars, is forthcoming from Ballantine.

Over the years, I’ve developed and sought out suggestions on how to establish a writing practice, sustain creativity, and find community. May the following help you, too...

Read More»