The Year She Left Us (30 page)

Authors: Kathryn Ma

BOOK: The Year She Left Us

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I
am deeply grateful to my extraordinary mother, Margaret C. Ma, who helped me with history and names and all things in all ways.

Warm appreciation to Geri Thoma and Jennifer Barth, whose brilliance and grace enhance every aspect of our endeavors. I thank my lucky stars for their tireless efforts on behalf of my work.

Thanks with a full heart to Sanford, Emily, Hannah, and Eliza. I am indebted to Louise Ma, Philip Ma, Jennifer Ong, Nathalie Gilfoyle, Alex Wang, and all my family. The poem quoted by Gran was written by my grandfather Chang Fu-Liang.

Thanks also to:

Kyra Subbotin, Diane Cash, and Margaret Carter for unwavering friendship; Tom Scarpino and Mixed Media for inspiration then and now; and True to the Mood for thirty years of books.

Bora Reed, Kirsten Menger-Anderson, and Tony Stayner, who gave generously of time and attention; Liz Nichols and Gary Cohen; and Catherine Alden, Louise Aronson, Natalie Baszile, Leah Griesmann, Susanne Pritchett Jensen, Elena Mauli Shapiro, and Suzanne Wilsey.

The fabulous Lynn Freed for wisdom.

Michael Collier, Margot Livesey, Charles Baxter, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference; and the wonderful writers I met there.

For kindness and patience and invaluable help with research, I thank the following, expert witnesses all: Margaret Carter, Susan Cox, Hon. Lisa Foster, Ed Harman, Dr. Helen Mikiko Huang, Sanford Kingsley (often and throughout), Mrs. Eva Levi, Wayne Lew, Mrs. Mary Loh, Dr. Michael MacAvoy, Hon. Marla Miller, Dr. James Morris, Craig Pinto, Jan Rutherdale, Staci Slaughter, Dr. Marshall Stoller, Dr. Caroline Tsen, Vivian Fei Tsen, Tom Waldo, Mrs. Katharine Wang, and Azeem Zakria (Scriptum in the Turl). For anyone keeping book, all recorded errors should be marked down to me.

I'm grateful to the Carpeneti family, the Cox-Nave family, and the Rutherdale-Bush family for years of friendship and incomparable hospitality in Juneau.

This book owes much to the love of my mother, Margaret C. Ma; the labors of my father, James J. L. Ma; and the integrity of my brother Christopher Y. W. Ma.

Thank you.

About the Author

KATHRYN MA is the author of the story collection
All That Work and Still No Boys
, winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award. The book was named a
San Francisco Chronicle
Notable Book and a
Los Angeles Times
Discoveries Book. She is also the recipient of the David Nathan Meyerson Prize for Fiction. Before becoming a writer, Ma was a partner in a California law firm. She lives with her family in San Francisco. This is her first novel.

Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

Credits

Cover design by Milan Bozic

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

THE YEAR SHE LEFT US
. Copyright Â© 2014 by Kathryn Ma. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ma, Kathryn.

The year she left us / Kathryn Ma.âFirst edition.

p. cm

ISBN 978-0-06-227334-5

1. OrphansâChinaâFiction. 2. Adopted childrenâChinaâFiction. 3. Adoptive parentsâFiction. 4. San Francisco (Calif.)âFiction. 5. Domestic fiction. I. Title.

PS3613.A13A613Â Â Â 2014

813'.6âdc23

2013026100

EPub Edition Â© MAY 2014 ISBN: 9780062273369

14 15 16 17 18
OV/RRD
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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