Summary

The prologue opens in the Calthorpe Hotel in London in 1986—24 years before the bulk of the novel takes place. Eight-year-old Nick Young and his cousins, Astrid and Eddie, are sopping wet after walking in the rain from the tube to the hotel. The children are accompanied by Nick’s mother, Eleanor; Astrid’s mother, Felicity; and Eddie’s mother, Alexandra. Ormsby, the hotel manager, is disgusted by the soggy mess that the group has tracked in and assumes that because they are Chinese, they must be in the wrong hotel. When it becomes clear that these people are indeed hotel guests—who booked the hotel’s largest suite, no less—Ormsby pretends that there has been a mistake with the reservation, and the group cannot stay. When the women make a fuss and even point out that their names are written clearly in the...