Patchwork Dolls

“Ysabelle Cheung's protagonists grapple with intimacies of power from the personal to the political to the changing natural world. Yet, what draws me to these stories is not only their relevance, but their intelligent dedication to accuracy of individual feeling, no matter what the form, device, or imagination required. In other words, while these stories are set in various times, Cheung does not shy away from the present. Neither science fiction, myth, nor magical realism, but some amalgamation of it all, this collection offers fugitive possibilities against the hauntings of our historical moment.” —Yanyi, Dream of the Divided Field

“With grace and precision, Ysabelle Cheung conjures up uncanny worlds populated by clones and spirits, fungi and liminal spaces, to interrogate migration, alienation, and inheritance. It is a magical realism that illuminates as much as it disorientates, and one that covers a full spectrum of human emotions resting underneath a glaze of unreality. A startling debut with evocative haunting tales that evoke Angela Carter, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Carmen Maria Machado; I devoured this book in one sitting.” —Karen Cheung, The Impossible City

"Ysabelle Cheung's stories are wildly inventive, at turns witty and wistful. A precise and disconcerting depiction of the uncanny valley of our times, Patchwork Dolls heralds an exciting new voice in fiction!" —May-lee Chai, author of the American Book Award winning-collection Useful Phrases for Immigrants and Tomorrow in Shanghai & Other Stories

In this debut story collection, Ysabelle Cheung weaves an eerie fabulism with tales that cross continents, technology, and time.

Set in Hong Kong and America—between the present day and an uncannily altered future—this story collection warps the familiar rules of our world to ask: what does it mean to be Asian and a woman—living under the specter of state and technological surveillance—or trying to break free from it?

In the title story, a young woman of color realizes she can make her fortune by surgically selling her facial features to whiter, wealthier clients. In “Please, Get Out and Dance,” a group of rebels escapes a city that is literally disappearing around them—building by building, person by person—to migrate to a new home beneath the ocean, defying their government’s mandate. “Herbs” follows an elderly widow who, when the clones of her dead husband start to appear uninvited in her home, must grapple with her memories.

In each of these stories, Cheung tilts the world just slightly off its axis to bring together a haunting meditation on what it means to survive within our increasingly digitized and mechanized world.