What makes Americans “real”? Is it our competitive drive? Our craving for wealth and status? Our insatiable quest for scientific advancement? Or is it — inevitably — the color of our skin and eyes? This concern spirals quietly, like a double helix, through Rachel Khong’s enigmatic second novel, “Real Americans.” The thing is, the story opens not in the United States but in China, where we’re plunged briefly into the Cultural Revolution. The Red Guard is closing in, bent on destruction, as a pair... Read this story
