Jay Caspian Kang is a writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine. His other work has appeared in The New York Review of Books and The New Yorker, and on ThisAmerican Life and Vice, where he worked as an Emmy-nominated correspondent. He is the author of the novel The Dead Do Not Improve, which The Boston Globe called "an extremely smart, funny debut, with moments of haunting beauty."
“Much of the book’s texture is supplied by the character of Jay
Kang, who bristles at the prospect of being a character at all. . .
. His perpetual self-doubt makes the book crackle with life. . . .
The lasting achievement of The Loneliest Americans is that it
prompts Asian Americans to think about identity in a framework
other than likeness. It asks us to make meaning in ways beyond
looking out for our own.”—The New Yorker
“The Loneliest Americans dares readers to push beyond their comfort
zones and deconstruct the mythology of American
identity.”—LitHub
“Provocative . . . Of the books in this column, it’s the one I
can’t shake, the most unsettling, and certainly least lovable, by
design. It’s also the hardest to put down. . . . [Kang] does not
want to speak for the scope of Asian America, but he does have a
lot to say about how a sense of self can be relayed, assembled and
diluted. . . . It’s a messy, frustrating, thoughtful, confusing,
illuminating argument—all at once.”—Chicago Tribune
“[The Loneliest Americans] is an invitation to think harder
and move beyond the existing racial taxonomies . . . Kang may not
have all the answers to help us ‘solve race,’ but he does something
as important: he asks the uncomfortable questions.”—The Brooklyn
Rail
“A smart, vulnerable, and incisive exploration of what it means for
this brilliant and honest writer—a child of Korean immigrants—to
assimilate and aspire while being critical of his membership in his
community of origin, in his political tribe, and in America.”—Min
Jin Lee, author of Pachinko
“Jay Caspian Kang is an unmissable interrogator of contemporary
identity politics: sharp, conflicted, allergic to sanctimony, and
unsparing most of all when he looks at himself. The Loneliest
Americans lays out the seductions of protective self-interest—the
individualistic narratives of trauma and ambition—that must be
overcome if Asians in America hope to establish a politics of broad
radical solidarity.”—Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror
“From courtrooms to classrooms, Reddit threads to Kang’s own family
history, The Loneliest Americans fearlessly, voraciously probes the
foundations of the Asian American experience, not to disavow it but
to conjure bracing new visions of community and solidarity.”—Hua
Hsu, author of A Floating Chinaman
“Jay Caspian Kang’s singular voice combines Salingeresque charm
with simmering rage, deadpan hilarity, and laser brilliance . . .
Readers from other ‘inconvenient’ minorities will definitely
relate. Kang leads us to a smarter, more compassionate and
consequential place to take a stand.”—Francisco Goldman, author of
Monkey Boy
“[A] searing treatise . . . . This excellent commentary on the
Asian American experience radiates with nuance and
emotion.”—Publishers Weekly
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