England, 2015. Madelyn dreads telling her young children about her mother, who died by suicide decades earlier. But when her child asks about skin tone and eye color, she’s compelled to share the painful truth.

A Cantonese village, 1895. Emigrating to America seems inevitable for teenage Song, whose family is starving during a drought. His grandmother tells him about Chinese emigrants’ ordeals and predicts a fate that will bring tragedy upon his descendants.

Oakland, 1921. Henri is held responsible for a theft at his brother-in-law’s store. By 1955, he owns the store but resents his business rival, whose philandering son has married Henri’s daughter Corri.

San Francisco Bay Area, 1995. Corri relies, perhaps too much, on kindness and spirituality to get her through life. She shares a crucial poem with her granddaughter Madelyn.

Staring into the Sun links memoir and the true stories of a Chinese American family. From the reverberations of the Chinese Exclusion Act to the glamour of a millionaire, a magician, and a model, this collection lays bare one family’s tragedies and triumphs.