Item: Welcome Me to the Kingdom
Rating: 3.50
Author: quirkycat

by Mai Nardone

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • An immersive debut set across the temples, slums, and gated estates of late-twentieth century Bangkok, telling the story of three families striving to control their destinies in a merciless, sometimes brutally violent, metropolis.

“Mai Nardone is a writer with an atlas straight to the heart. I did not want to put this book down and neither will you.”—C Pam Zhang, bestselling author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold

LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/ROBERT W. BINGHAM PRIZE

We came with the drought. From the window of the train, the rich brown of the Chao Phraya River marked the turn from the northeast into the central plains. We came for Bangkok on the delta. The thin tributaries that laced the provinces found full current at the capital. And in the city, we’d heard, the wealth was wide and deep.

In 1980, young lovers Pea and Nam arrive in Bangkok in search of a life, and a world, beyond Thailand’s rural outskirts. Thirty days, they promise each other. Thirty days for Pea to find work, for him to put aside his violent and unstable past and take root in this strange new land. But Bangkok does not want for male laborers, especially teenage boys with thick provincial accents, and when time finally runs out on their promise, it’s Nam who ultimately adapts to the capital’s ruthless logic and survives.

Spanning decades and perspectives, seamlessly shifting between the absurd and the tenderhearted, the interwoven stories of Welcome Me to the Kingdom introduce three families—Nam, her American husband, Rick, and their daughter, Lara; Vitat, a Thai Elvis impersonator, and his only daughter, Pinky; and Tintin and Benz, orphans who have adopted each other as brothers—who employ various schemes to lie, betray, and seduce their way to the “good life.”

These disparate citizens of Bangkok orbit each other over the next three decades—sometimes violently, passionately colliding. Through skin-whitening routines, cult conversion, gambling, and sex work, the collection’s characters look for reinvention in a city buckling under the weight of its own modernity.

Wildly imaginative and ambitious, Mai Nardone’s stories reveal the growing discrepancy between Bangkok’s smiling self-image and its ugly underbelly, and, in the process, offer a striking portrait of a city unmade by the whims of global capitalism, in a kingdom caught between this world and the next.

Book Summary:

Three families are struggling to survive and find their path forward in life. Given the events of the world, this is easier said than done. Their stories are set shortly after the 1997 financial crisis, which means everyone is struggling to find security and their place in the world.

Set in Bangkok, Welcome Me to the Kingdom promises to be a look into several families and their journey through this time.

My Review:

I've got to admit, Welcome Me to the Kingdom is one of those books that makes you stop and think. I loved the storytelling format, as it wraps three different families and their journeys into one larger tale.

When I first picked Welcome Me to the Kingdom, I wasn't sure if it would be a collection of short stories or a more cohesive tale. I'm thrilled with what I found inside (though I love anthologies, don't get me wrong!). In a way, this book is unlike anything I've read before. Therefore, I highly recommend keeping an eye on what Mai Nardone comes up with next.

Highlights:
Literary Fiction
Three Families
Battle for Survival
Debut

Trigger Warnings:
Financial Crisis of 1997
Gambling
Sex Work
Cults

Thanks to Random House and #NetGalley for making this book available for review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks | Quirky Cat's Comics | The Book Review Crew | Monkeys Fighting Robots | Storygraph | Bookhype | Bookstagram | Twitter | Tumblr | Reedsy

Welcome Me to the Kingdom

by Mai Nardone

Reviewed by Quirky Cat on Feb 16, 2023

Reading updates