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cover of episode What does 'The Family Chao' have in common with Dostoyevsky? Murder and more.

What does 'The Family Chao' have in common with Dostoyevsky? Murder and more.

2022/2/16
logo of podcast NPR's Book of the Day

NPR's Book of the Day

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Patriarch Leo Chao is murdered at his restaurant at the beginning of Lan Samantha Chang's new novel The Family Chao. Eventually family secrets and bitterness reveal themselves — much like a Dostoyevsky novel, from whom Chao took a lot of inspiration. But NPR's Scott Simon points out that even though this novel is about a murder, it's quite funny. Chang told Simon that she just enjoyed writing it so much that humor became part of it.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices)NPR Privacy Policy)