Lo incorporates Chinese food and language, appending explanatory footnotes for romanized Cantonese and Mandarin terms and characters. As Lily falls deeper in love, though, she must work to balance the shifting elements of her identity with a landscape of sociopolitical turmoil that will resonate with contemporary readers. But openly exploring queerness isn’t an option-not with her mother touting “respectability,” and society’s limited perception of Chinese-Americanness as either “China doll” or “real American”-adjacent, and especially not amid McCarthyism-during which Chinese people, including those within Lily’s close Chinatown community, are targeted as Communist sympathizers. Dawning recognition of her lesbianism comes alongside a budding connection with Kathleen Miller, a white classmate. Lily secretly gathers photos of women with masculine qualities she’s drawn toward “unfeminine” clothing and interests such as chemistry, engines, and space. The year is 1954, and American-born Chinese 17-year-old Lily Hu, a rising senior at San Francisco’s Galileo High School, discovers the existence of the Telegraph Club nightclub by chance: via an ad in the Chronicle featuring a Male Impersonator.
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