''Memory Piece'' is a 2024 novel by American writer

Lisa Ko Lisa Ko is an American writer. Her debut novel, '' The Leavers'', was a national bestseller, won the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction and was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction. Her short fiction has be ...

, published by

Riverhead Books Riverhead Books is an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) founded in 1994 by Susan Petersen Kennedy. Writers published by Riverhead include Ali Sethi, Marlon James, Junot Díaz, George Saunders, Khaled Hosseini, Nick Hornby, Anne Lamott, Carl ...

. It follows

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans with ancestry from the continent of Asia (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of those immigrants). Although this term had historically been used fo ...

women growing up

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

through the dawn of the internet and toward a dystopian future. Ko began writing the novel in 2016 shortly after selling the manuscript for her debut, ''The Leavers''. It was named a Best Book of 2024 by ''Vogue''.

Synopsis

The novel follows three

friends who meet on the

Fourth of July Independence Day, known colloquially as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States which commemorates the ratification of the Declaration of Independence by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, establishing th ...

at a barbecue in the eighties: Giselle Chin, a performance artist; Jackie Ong, a tech entrepreneur; and Ellen Ng, a community organizer and activist. It traces their

coming of age Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can b ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

and

through the

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Interne ...

and far into a dystopian future in the 2040s. The novel's title refers to Giselle's practice of writing down her memories every day and later burning them.

Influences

Ko's urgency to write the novel was informed by recent concerns in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

book censorship Book censorship is the act of some authority taking measures to suppress ideas and information within a book. Censorship is "the regulation of free speech and other forms of entrenched authority". Censors typically identify as either a concerned ...

and

historical revisionism In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of a historical account. It usually involves challenging the orthodox (established, accepted or traditional) scholarly views or narratives regarding a historical event, timespa ...

, as well as modern problems endemic to

social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...

, technology, and

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

. In writing Giselle, the performance artist, Ko was drawn to the works of

Tehching Hsieh Sam Hsieh Teh-ching (; born December 31, 1950), known professionally as Tehching Hsieh, is a Taiwanese-born performance artist. He has been called a "master" by fellow performance artist Marina Abramović. Early life Born in Nanzhou, Hsieh wa ...

On Kawara was a Japanese conceptual artist who lived in SoHo, New York City, from 1965 until his death. He took part in many solo and group Art exhibition, exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale in 1976. Early life Kawara was born in Kariya, Japan on ...

, and

Adrian Piper Adrian Margaret Smith Piper (born September 20, 1948) is an American conceptual artist and Kantian philosopher. Her work addresses how and why those involved in more than one discipline may experience professional ostracism, otherness, racial ...

. Books she found particularly inspirational were ''The Flamethrowers'' by

Rachel Kushner Rachel Kushner (born October 7, 1968) is an American writer, known for her novels '' Telex from Cuba'' (2008), '' The Flamethrowers'' (2013), '' The Mars Room'' (2018), and ''Creation Lake'' (2024). Early life Kushner was born in Eugene, Oregon, ...

, '' Innocents and Others'' by Dana Spiotta, and ''After Kathy Acker'' by Chris Kraus. Ko also researched zine culture in the nineties to inform the novel's partial setting in the early

internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

age.

Critical Reception

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus. The magazine's publisher, Kirkus Media, is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fiction, no ...

'' received the novel lukewarmly relative to Ko's debut, ''The Leavers'', saying that it "fails to whip up much narrative tension" and that "the book’s elaborate conceptual structure dominates the characters who inhabit it." ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

'' found the novel's structure similarly "disjointed" but found satisfaction in the "final act in the 2040s, when America is an authoritarian police state." Many publications, like ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', lauded Ko's speculative approach to modern issues like

gentrification Gentrification is the process whereby the character of a neighborhood changes through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents (the "gentry") and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse, it has ...

policing The police are a constituted body of people empowered by a state with the aim of enforcing the law and protecting the public order as well as the public itself. This commonly includes ensuring the safety, health, and possessions of citizen ...

wealth inequality The distribution of wealth is a comparison of the wealth of various members or groups in a society. It shows one aspect of economic inequality or economic heterogeneity. The distribution of wealth differs from the income distribution in that ...

, and

technology Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' called the novel "socially astute and formally innovative", as well as "giddy with women's liberation". ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...

'' and ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' appreciated the novel's ambition both in its subject matter and its triptych of characters.

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

included the novel on his 2024 summer reading list.

Awards

References

{{reflist Chinese-American novels Chinese-American literature Asian-American literature Asian-American novels