Rental House

Wang’s (Joan Is Okay; Chemistry) stellar new novel is a sharp portrayal of a marriage and its fault lines in between two family vacations. Two or so years after the start of the pandemic, married couple Nate and Keru rent a house for a month on Cape Cod. They met at a college party and eventually married, despite their vast differences in values and temperament. While at the Cape, they host their parents one at a time. Keru’s parents, who immigrated from China when she was a small child, value hard work and suffering and bristle at the expensive surroundings at the Cape. Nate’s deeply conservative parents are nice to Keru on the surface but are still occasionally xenophobic. They are also science deniers, even though their son is a scientist. Keru, as a consultant, out-earns Nate. This fact, plus their decision not to have children, causes conflict with each of their families. Five years later, a vacation in the Catskills brings Nate’s ne’er-do-well brother to their expensive rental house.