Where Are You Really From

Stories

By: Elaine Hsieh Chou

Narrated by: Joel de la Fuente, Imani Jade Powers, Katharine Chin, Natalie Naudus

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY TIME, NPR AND ELECTRIC LIT • A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2025 BY LIT HUB, THE OC REGISTER, THE MILLIONS AND MORE • NAMED A BEST BOOK OF AUGUST 2025 BY PEOPLE MAGAZINE • NAMED A MUST-READ BOOK BY THE CHICAGO REVIEW OF BOOKS • THE STRAND’S AUGUST 2025 PICK-OF-THE-MONTH • SELECTED AS AN AUGUST 2025 READ BY VULTURE

“Scintillating … These expressive and atmospheric tales mesmerize” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Chou is gifted at storytelling with a surrealistic bent … Sharp storytelling that bends and blurs genre expectations.” —Kirkus (starred review)

From the critically-acclaimed author of Disorientation, a multi-genre story collection that explores the limits and possibilities of storytelling

A mail order bride from Taiwan is packed up in a cardboard box and sent via express shipping to California, where her much older husband awaits her. Two teenage girls meticulously plan how to kill and cook their downstairs neighbor. An American au pair moves to Paris to find herself, only to find her actual French doppelgänger. A father reunites with his estranged daughter in unusual circumstances: as a background actor on the set of her film. A writer’s affair with a married artist tests the line between fact and fiction, self-victimization and the victimization of others.

In these six singular stories and a novella that pivot from the terrible to the beautiful to the surreal, Elaine Hsieh Chou confronts the slipperiness of truth in storytelling. With razor-sharp precision and psychological acuity, she peels back the tales we tell ourselves to peer beneath them: at our treacherous desires, our self-deceptions and our capacity for cruelty, both to ourselves and each other. Expansive and provocative, Where Are You Really From is a visionary achievement.

Fantastic

Stunningly creative. By turns moving and laugh-out loud funny, one of the most amazing things I’ve read (or rather, listened to) in a long time.

Every bit as good as Disorientation, but distinct in lens, and voice. These stories will stay with you and keep you wondering, pondering or whatever it is that really good stories make you do