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Synopsis
Take Me Home is a powerful story about friendship and love set against the stunning backdrop of 1880's Wyoming and based in the pages of history.
Like many classic stories, Brian Leung’s new novel begins with a journey home. Adele “Addie” Maine is returning to Dire, a Wyoming coal-mining town, forty years after the deadly events that nearly took her life and drove her away without a word to her husband.
Years earlier: Headed West to stay with her brother Tommy, a young and feisty Addie arrives in Wyoming having been convinced along the way that the Chinese who work alongside the white men in the small Wyoming town are half-man, half-beast—devious creatures to be wary of. When Tommy falters at homesteading, the siblings look to the coal mines and Addie comes into close contact with one Chinese man in particular, Wing Lee. The bond between the two is a mere spark at first, hampered by the reality for both that a friendship would be impossible, forbidden, even in a territory where almost everyone is an immigrant.
Together, Addie and Wing harbor a secret. Ultimately Addie must protect Wing’s life and fight for what she knows is right, but she still can’t find the answers to life’s most important questions. It’s only as a much older woman, returning to Dire to bid farewell to a friend from decades ago, that Addie comes face-to-face with the man she’s certain tried to kill her, and at last confronts the surprises and losses that await at the end of a difficult journey.
Take Me Home is a searing, redemptive novel that explores justice in a time of violence, and the sweeping landscape between friendship and love.
Publishers Weekly
Leung's (Lost Men) lyrical sophomore novel follows Addie Maine, a white woman who, 40 years earlier, fled her marriage in 1880s Wyoming after a risky act of compassion saves Chinese immigrant miners. In 1927, she returns to the violently xenophobic town of Dire to be celebrated by a Chinese dignitary for her past effort. Leung's evocative tale backtracks in time as he recounts Addie's teenage trip by train to live with her farmer brother, during which she was unceremoniously schooled about the "coolies," the derogatory term for the Chinese who had been brought from California to work in the Wyoming mines. Addie's brother's eventual failure to produce a lucrative crop forces the siblings to seek jobs in the mines, where Addie meets Wing Lee. Their association incites the ire of the townsfolk and sets violent events in motion. Leung's subtle, perceptive saga closes on notes both touching and patriotic. (Oct.)