The Third Son: A Novel - Softcover

“Clear your schedule! The Third Son is your next obsessive read. Julie Wu’s book reads like an instant classic.”  ―Lydia Netzer, author of Shine Shine Shine

In the middle of a terrifying air raid in Japanese-occupied Taiwan, Saburo, the least-favored son of a Taiwanese politician, runs through a forest for cover. It’s there he stumbles on Yoshiko, whose descriptions of her loving family are to Saburo like a glimpse of paradise. Meeting her is a moment he will remember forever, and for years he will try to find her again. When he finally does, she is by the side of his oldest brother and greatest rival.

In Saburo, author Julie Wu has created an extraordinary character, determined to fight for everything he needs and wants, from food to education to his first love. The Third Son is a sparkling and moving story about a young boy with his head in the clouds who, against all odds, finds himself on the frontier of America’s space program.

“An appealing coming-of-age story packed with vivid historical detail.” ―The Christian Science Monitor

“A boy growing up in Japanese-occupied Taiwan in the 1940s will do anything to escape his tormenting  family and reconnect with his first love in this compelling   work of fiction.” ―O: The Oprah Magazine

“Deceptively simple, deeply compelling . . . An unusually awful sibling rivalry, a stunningly pure and inspiring love story.”  ―The Boston Globe

“Wu presents an alluring story that hits all the right emotional buttons and maintains readers’ empathy from the first page to the last.” ―Kirkus Reviews

“An epic and beautiful debut, Wu had me rooting for her hero right from the very start. The Third Son is a novel of chances and choices, love and loyalty, hope and heartache. A magnificently inspiring story of one man's odyssey to freedom.” —Carol Rifka Brunt, author of Tell the Wolves I'm Home

In the middle of a terrifying air raid? in Japanese-occupied Taiwan, Saburo, the least-favored son of a Taiwanese politician, runs through a peach forest for cover. It’s there that he stumbles upon Yoshiko, whose descriptions of her loving family are to Saburo like a glimpse of paradise. Meeting her is a moment he will remember forever, and for years he will try to find her again. When he finally does, she is by the side of his oldest brother and greatest rival.

Set in a tumultuous and violent period of Taiwanese history—as the Chinese Nationalist Army lays claim to the island and one autocracy replaces another—and the fast-changing American West of the late 1950s and early 1960s, The Third Son is a richly textured story of lives governed by the inheritance of family and the legacy of culture, and of a young man determined to free himself from both.

In Saburo, debut author Julie Wu has created an extraordinary character who is determined to fight for everything he needs and wants, from food to education to his first love. A sparkling and moving story, it will have readers cheering for a young boy with his head in the clouds who, against all odds, finds himself on the frontier? of America’s space program.