{"product_id":"the-unpassing","title":"The Unpassing, Chia-Chia Lin","description":"\u003cp\u003eA searing debut novel that explores community, identity, and the myth of the American dream through an immigrant family in Alaska\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn Chia-Chia Lin’s debut novel, The Unpassing, we meet a Taiwanese immigrant family of five struggling to make ends meet in rural Alaska. The father, hardworking but beaten down, is employed as a plumber and repairman, while the mother, a loving, strong-willed, and unpredictably emotional matriarch, holds the house together. When eleven-year-old Gavin contracts meningitis at school, he falls into a deep, nearly fatal coma. He wakes up a week later to learn that his little sister Ruby was infected, too. She did not survive.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRoutine takes over for the grieving family: the siblings care for each other as they befriend a neighboring family and explore the woods; distance grows between the parents as they deal with their loss separately. But things spiral when the father, increasingly guilt-ridden after Ruby’s death, is sued for not properly installing a septic tank, which results in the death of a little girl. In the ensuing chaos, what really happened to Ruby finally emerges.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith flowing prose that evokes the terrifying beauty of the Alaskan wilderness, Lin explores the fallout after losing 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.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"gentle books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47942605602953,"sku":"9780349013473","price":50.0,"currency_code":"HKD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0598\/9289\/1785\/files\/9780349013473.jpg?v=1786595700","url":"https:\/\/thisisgentle.com\/products\/the-unpassing","provider":"gentle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}