For Today I Am a Boy - Tapa dura

“[A] sharply written debut...A coming-of-age tale for our time.” —Seattle Times

At birth, Peter Huang is given the Chinese name Juan Chaun, “powerful king.” To his parents, newly settled in small-town Ontario, he is the exalted only son in a sea of daughters, the one who will finally fulfill his immigrant father’s dreams of Western masculinity. Peter and his sisters grow up in an airless house of order and obligation, though secrets and half-truths simmer beneath the surface. At the first opportunity, each of the girls lights out on her own. But for Peter, escape is not as simple as fleeing his parents’ home. Though his father crowned him “powerful king,” Peter knows otherwise. He knows he is really a girl. With the help of his far-flung sisters and the sympathetic souls he finds along the way, Peter inches ever closer to his own life, his own skin, in this darkly funny, emotionally acute, stunningly powerful debut. 

Praise for For Today I Am a Boy

“For Today I Am a Boy is beautiful and captivating. Kim Fu reminds us that the human condition is one of change—of becoming, of overcoming—and this novel, in all its complexity, demonstrates how to do so with grace.” —Justin Torres, author of We The Animals

“[A] quietly forceful debut . . . [with] a redemptive trajectory that feels fully earned . . . Shot through with melancholy while capturing the bliss of discovering one’s sexual self.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A unique and mesmerizing story populated with characters who are fragile and strong all at once. An important and rewarding read.” — Steven Galloway, author of The Cellist of Sarajevo

“Fresh and pitch-perfect. Fu orchestrates a collision of culture, generation, gender, and place, each crashing head on with her true observations and dark humor.” —Michael Christie, author of The Beggar’s Garden

“The world doesn’t need many new novels, but the world needs this one.” —Keith Mallard, author of Gloria