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The thousand crimes of Ming Tsu : a novel / Tom Lin.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2021Edition: First editionDescription: 275 pages : illustration ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780316542159
  • 0316542156
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Summary: Fighting his way across the West to rescue his wife and exact revenge on the men who destroyed him, while settling old scores along the way, Ming Tsu is aided by a blind clairvoyant and a troupe of magic-show performers, some with supernatural powers.Summary: Orphaned son of Chinese immigrants, Ming Tsu is raised by the notorious leader of a California crime syndicate, who trains him to be his deadly enforcer. Ming falls in love with Ada, daughter of a powerful railroad magnate, and they elope with plans to escape to a different life. When the tycoon's henchmen kidnap Ada and conscript Ming into service for the Central Pacific Railroad, he partners with a blind clairvoyant known as the prophet. They set out to rescue his wife and to exact revenge on the men who destroyed Ming, aided by a troupe of magic-show performers, some with supernatural powers, whom they meet on the journey. -- adapted from jacket
List(s) this item appears in: Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Fiction LIN TOM Available 33111010526420
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Winner of the Carnegie Medal for Excellence

Finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award



A Chinese American assassin sets out to rescue his kidnapped wife and exact revenge on her abductors in this New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice: a twist on the classic western from "an astonishing new voice" (Jonathan Lethem).

Orphaned young, Ming Tsu, the son of Chinese immigrants, is raised by the notorious leader of a California crime syndicate, who trains him to be his deadly enforcer. But when Ming falls in love with Ada, the daughter of a powerful railroad magnate, and the two elope, he seizes the opportunity to escape to a different life. Soon after, in a violent raid, the tycoon's henchmen kidnap Ada and conscript Ming into service for the Central Pacific Railroad.

Battered, heartbroken, and yet defiant, Ming partners with a blind clairvoyant known only as the prophet. Together the two set out to rescue his wife and to exact revenge on the men who destroyed Ming, aided by a troupe of magic-show performers, some with supernatural powers, whom they meet on the journey. Ming blazes his way across the West, settling old scores with a single-minded devotion that culminates in an explosive and unexpected finale.

Written with the violent ardor of Cormac McCarthy and the otherworldly inventiveness of Ted Chiang, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu is at once a thriller, a romance, and a story of one man's quest for redemption in the face of a distinctly American brutality.

"In Tom Lin's novel, the atmosphere of Cormac McCarthy's West, or that of the Coen Brothers' True Grit , gives way to the phantasmagorical shades of Ray Bradbury, Charles Finney's The Circus of Dr. Lao , and Katherine Dunn's Geek Love . Yet The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu has a velocity and perspective all its own, and is a fierce new version of the Westward Dream." --Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn

Fighting his way across the West to rescue his wife and exact revenge on the men who destroyed him, while settling old scores along the way, Ming Tsu is aided by a blind clairvoyant and a troupe of magic-show performers, some with supernatural powers.

Orphaned son of Chinese immigrants, Ming Tsu is raised by the notorious leader of a California crime syndicate, who trains him to be his deadly enforcer. Ming falls in love with Ada, daughter of a powerful railroad magnate, and they elope with plans to escape to a different life. When the tycoon's henchmen kidnap Ada and conscript Ming into service for the Central Pacific Railroad, he partners with a blind clairvoyant known as the prophet. They set out to rescue his wife and to exact revenge on the men who destroyed Ming, aided by a troupe of magic-show performers, some with supernatural powers, whom they meet on the journey. -- adapted from jacket

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