Silicon Valley, with all its excesses, lies at the heart of Kathy Wang’s insightful, witty and acutely honest debut novel of a Chinese-American family in crisis mode.
Patriarch Stanley Huang is dying of pancreatic cancer. His imminent passing is mourned by his two grown children, Kate and Fred; their mother and Stanley’s ex-wife, Linda; and his current wife, Mary. At the same time, each wonders just how their finances might be affected by his will, which has always remained a mystery. Stanley has hinted to Mary that he’s worth millions, but Linda is skeptical since she was the money manager during their marriage and knows that Stanley is clueless when it comes to investing.
Fred, though graduating with honors from Harvard Business School, is mired in a huge investment firm with little room for advancement. He begins to imagine the perks a few million would bring, though his discreet questions about the will are completely ignored. Kate also works for a tech company as a middle manager—and at the moment is the sole breadwinner in her family, as her husband has been on the verge of launching a startup for what seems like an endless number of months. An infusion of funds from her father’s will would obviously be most welcome.
Linda has invested wisely over the years since her divorce from Stanley. She’s financially stable, but she wants to make sure Fred and Kate get their fair share and don’t lose out to Mary, whom Linda knows expects to be handsomely rewarded for caring for her dying husband.
An intriguing side plot explores Linda’s involvement with an online dating site that harbors a global financial scam—one that, coincidentally, Fred barely escapes investing in himself.
Wang also graduated from Harvard Business School and worked in the tech field before deciding to write this engaging blend of family saga and Silicon Valley exposé. In Family Trust, her dissection of the glamorous appeal of this superficial slice of life succeeds on many levels and will appeal to a wide variety of readers.
This article was originally published in the November 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.
