About the Book
“A surreal, queer, coming-of-age mystery set between New York and Shanghai.”—TIME, A Best Book of Fall
A Best Book of October at People, Chicago Review of Books, and The Millions
Finalist for the 2024 Big Other Book Award
Newly single Meadow Liu is house-sitting for his friend, artist Selma Shimizu, when he stumbles upon The Masquerade, a translated novel about a masked ball in 1930s Shanghai. The author’s name is the same as Meadow’s own in Chinese, Liu Tian—a coincidence that proves to be the first of many strange happenings. Over the course of a single summer, Meadow must contend with a possibly haunted apartment, a mirror that plays tricks, a stranger speaking in riddles at the bar where he works, as well as a startling revelation about a former lover. And when Selma vanishes from her artist residency, Meadow is forced to question everything he knows as the boundaries between real and imagined begin to blur.
Exploring social, cultural, and sexual identities in New York, Shanghai, and beyond, Mike Fu’s Masquerade is a skillfully layered, brilliantly interwoven debut novel of friendship, queer longing, and worlds on the brink, asking how we can find ourselves among ghosts of all kinds, and who we can trust when nothing—and no one—is as it seems.
About the Author :
Mike Fu is a writer, translator, and editor based in Japan. He has studied in Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Suzhou, and Tokyo. His Chinese-English translation of Stories of the Sahara by the late Taiwanese cultural icon Sanmao was named a Favorite Book of the Year by The Paris Review and shortlisted for the National Translation Award in Prose. He is a cofounder and former translation editor of The Shanghai Literary Review, and currently a PhD candidate at Waseda University.
Review :
"A surreal, queer, coming-of-age mystery set between New York and Shanghai."—TIME, A Best Book of Fall
"Beautiful., captivating."—People Magazine, A Best Book of October
"Dream-like. . . . a meandering, surreal, and unsettling search for identity as Meadow examines the masks he’s worn throughout his adult life."—Associated Press
"Packed with mystery, travels through history, and simultaneously gorgeous and sad meditations on what it means to be torn between two places, reading this novel was like adventuring into a world so like our own while beckoning to something more."—Chicago Review of Books, A Best Book of October
"An eerie and rewarding story of a queer Chinese American grappling with his sense of self. …. This funhouse of a novel is worth seeking out."—Publishers Weekly
"A magically realist novel of Millennial friendship and art."—LitHub, A Most Anticipated Book of 2024
"What it’s about: Housesitting for an artist friend in present-day New York, Meadow Liu stumbles on a novel whose author shares his name—the first of many strange, haunting happenings that lead up to the mysterious disappearance of Meadow’s friend.
Who it’s for: fans of Ed Park and Alexander Chee."—The Millions, A Best Book of October
"An enchanting and vibrant story about a young person discovering the truth about identity and reality. Fu provides impressive plotting coupled with brilliant prose."—Debutiful, A Best Book of November
"Sinuous, surprising…. intoxicating… electric … a novel of illusions and warped reflections worth getting lost in."—Foreword Reviews
"Dynamic and enigmatic. . . . A vibrant narrative collaged out of memory, hallucination, and stories-within-stories, Masquerade is bildungsroman that explores queerness, cultural identity, agency, and individuality." —West Trade Review
"Set in Shanghai and New York, Masquerade is replete with odd strangers and strange disappearances, eerie coincidences, and potential ghosts. What’s not to love?" —San Francisco Bay Times
"Questions of identity, reality, and possibility unfold."
—Library Journal
"Where Masquerade excels is in the way it evokes a lived-in version of New York—Brooklyn in particular—even as it also takes its protagonist to increasingly surreal places, both literally and metaphorically."—Reactor
"An exciting debut from a supremely confident writer. . . . an affecting, arresting bildungsroman."—Full Stop
"Compelling."—China Books Review
"Fu does not limit himself to the typical fare of any one genre. Indeed, in many respects, he wants to try them all—mystery novel, philosophical novel, queer coming-of-age—but perhaps most overt is his fascination with the surreal."—Soapberry Review
"Stylistically daring, with jigsaw plotting, lush sensuality, and a tender emotional core, Mike Fu’s Masquerade is a subtle and self-assured debut. A book that is as much about the brittle threads of reality that bind us as it is about how easily they are shattered." —Jinwoo Chong, author of Flux
"Sensuous, sexy, and at times surreal, Mike Fu’s Masquerade paints an unforgettable portrait of a young man standing on the cusp of creative agency. Masquerade is a mesmeric fever dream of a novel about the powers and boundaries of life, love, and art. Through writing that pulses with animus, danger, and—at all times—beauty, Fu introduces hidden, decadent corners of the singular cities of Shanghai, old Shanghai, and New York. A Nabokovian puzzle with a hint of Hitchcock and an altogether original cast." —Juli Min, author of Shanghailanders
"Masquerade captures that ephemeral blossom of youth, of carefree days bumming smokes from crushes and spilling cocktails on strangers, as well as the dreaded anticipation of loneliness and self-doubt on the last train home. From here, it provokes the reader to take part in an irresistible mystery. Mike Fu's writing is vivid and cinematic, unforgettably rendering the vibey-cool of diasporic Shanghai and the restless pulsing of New York’s heart." —Xuan Juliana Wang, author of Home Remedies
