Five-Star Stranger

DEBUT Tang’s moving debut imagines an app called Rental Stranger that allows users to hire freelancers as stand-ins and even companions—as a best man, a pretend brother, a fake husband. One of these Strangers is the nameless narrator of the novel, who views his decade-long career as atonement for the hurt he has brought into the world. He hopes that by making others happy he might be able to balance out the sorrow he brought his mother in the past. To accomplish this, he lives a regimented life, following strict personal rules, the first being that he will have no emotional attachments. Despite this, the Stranger has one role he has played for eight years: the pretend father to a young girl whose growing perceptiveness makes it harder to keep secret the arrangement her mother has made. When another client gets involved, the Stranger must decide how much of his feelings are an act and whether he has really brought happiness to his many clients. Although the novel focuses on an unconventional situation, Tang uses clean prose to bring complex characters to life.