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The School for Good Mothers
A January 2022 LibraryReads Pick
A Read with Jenna Today Show Pick
A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice of the Week
A #1 Amazon bestseller
An Entertainment Weekly Pick of Most Anticipated Upcoming Books
A Vogue Pick of Most Anticipated Upcoming Books
A Bustle Pick of Most Anticipated Upcoming Books
A Barnes & Noble bestseller
A New York Times bestseller
A BookPage Reading Circle Book Club Pick
A Barack Obama Reading List Pick for Summer
A New Yorker Best Books of the Year Pick
A Chicago Review of Books Pick of Books We're Thankful For
A New York Times Notable Book
An NPR Best Book of 2022
A Philadelphia Inquirer Best Book of 2022
A Time Magazine Book of the Year for 2022
Shortlisted for the 2022 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
In this taut and explosive debut novel, one lapse in judgment lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.
Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. She can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter, does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she is just enough.
Until Frida has a very bad day.
The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida. The ones who check their phones, letting their children get injured on the playground; who let their children walk home alone. Because of one moment of poor judgment, a host of government officials will now determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother–like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion.
Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that a bad mother can be redeemed. That she can learn to be good.
A searing page-turner that is also a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of “perfect” upper-middle-class parenting; the violence enacted upon women by both the state and, at times, one another; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness of love, The School for Good Mothers introduces, in Frida, an everywoman for the ages. Using dark wit to explore the pains and joys of the deepest ties that bind us, Chan has written a modern literary classic.