Our beloved GO Book Club will take the stage to welcome Rachel Khong with the presentation of this month’s featured book: Real Ameericans. For the occasion, the author will be in conversation with Samuele Massini.

The Book

Real Americans is a family saga spanning three generations and two continents, exploring the boundaries between social class and ambition, roots and legacy, science and nature. Rachel Khong shows us that the future can be shaped by those who have the courage and power to invent it, while happiness is a gift of the present—available to those who embrace life’s unpredictable simplicity.

It’s the eve of the new millennium in New York when Lily Chen, a 22-year-old intern at an online magazine, meets Matthew. He is everything she is not: carefree, charming, a true New Yorker—and heir to a pharmaceutical empire. Lily, by contrast, is a small-town girl with no money, the daughter of immigrant scientists who fled Mao’s Cultural Revolution and found in the United States the opportunity to pursue cutting-edge genetic research.
Despite their differences, Lily and Matthew fall deeply in love, and their union gives birth to Nick. Years later, in 2021, Nick—now fifteen—lives in Washington State with his mother, who has always denied him the chance to meet his father. Determined to uncover the truth, the boy secretly sets out to find him, risking dangerous revelations about his past and his family’s identity.

The Author

Rachel Khong grew up in Southern California and graduated from Yale University and the University of Florida. Her stories and essays have appeared in Joyland, American Short Fiction, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Believer, and California Sunday.
Her novels include Goodbye, Vitamin (NN Editore, 2019) and Real Americans (NN Editore, 2025).