Jessamine Chan joins us to discuss her new book, The School for Good Mothers, a taut and explosive debut novel about one lapse in judgement that lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.  In conversation with Aparita Bhandari.

Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn't have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents' sacrifices. She can't persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with Harriet, their cherubic daughter, does Frida finally attain the perfection expected of her.

But the state has its eyes on mothers like Frida. The ones who check their phones, letting their children get injured on the playground; who let their children walk home alone. After Frida has one very bad day, a host of government officials will now determine if she is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother's devotion.

A searing page-turner that is also a transgressive novel of ideas about the perils of "perfect" upper-middle class parenting; the violence enacted upon women by both the state and, at times, one another; the systems that separate families; and the boundlessness of love, The School for Good Mothers introduces, in Frida, an everywoman for the ages.

This event is  part of TPL’s Asian Heritage series.

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Jessamine Chan: The School for Good Mothers