Cinema Love

A Novel

By: Jiaming Tang

Narrated by: Samantha Tan

Winner of the Los Angeles Times' Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction
Winner of the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction
Winner of the Ferro-Grumley award for LGBTQ Fiction
Finalist for the 2025 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
Finalist for the Lambda Literary Award
Finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award

A Dakota Johnson x TeaTime Book Club Pick

“Part ghost story, part love story, and part tale of hardscrabble immigrant life.” —The New Yorker

A staggering epic about men and women who find themselves in forbidden relationships, the weight of secrets, and the persistence of memory.

Spanning decades, from post-socialist China to contemporary New York, Cinema Love is a tour de force about gay men and the women who marry them.

Thirty years ago, in rural Fuzhou, Old Second and his wife Bao Mei frequented the Workers’ Cinema: a rundown theater where gay men cruised for love. While classic war films played, Old Second found intimacy with closeted men in the screening rooms. In the box office, Bao Mei sold movie tickets, guarding the secrets of the cinema and even finding her own happiness with the projectionist. But once Old Second’s passionate affair with his male lover was exposed, a series of haunting events unfolded, propelling these characters toward an uncertain future in America.

A tender novel of love, care, and survival, Cinema Love announces Jiaming Tang as a major new talent.

Inventive story elegant prose

Very compelling and original narrative but lovingly rendered. Was riveting from start to finish loved it! What an impressive debut.

Just a beautiful novel. Well written, touching, heartbreaking and funny. A must-read.

A tender, heartbreaking, funny and beautifully authentic look at the lives of Chinese immigrants in America. We follow are group of people over three timelines; post-socialist China, 1980's Chinatown and modern New York. Highly recommended reading!

An Interesting Idea

Sad to say, this book was way too long. The characters were overly described. While the story of immigrants adjusting to a new life all over-laid with issues of prejudice against gay men sounds like an interesting idea, this one drags on for over 20 years and every chapter feels like another year. No variation in tone: no humor, no fear, no anticipation etc. I just didn’t feel it.