The Foremost Good Fortune

When Susan Conley moves with her family to Beijing, she can’t imagine how much their lives will change. While Tony, her husband, is consumed with his job, Susan confronts a host of perplexing firsts: determining the proper way to shop at a Chinese megamarket, bribing her two young sons to ride the school bus, and getting stuck in a highrise elevator, unable to call for help in Mandarin. Despite the difficulties, there is much occasion for joy in their lives, from trips to the Great Wall and bartering for a “starter Buddha” at the raucous flea market to feasting on the world’s best dumplings in back-alley restaurants.

Then Susan learns she has cancer. After treatment in Boston, she returns to Beijing, again as a foreigner—this time to her own body. Set against the eternally fascinating backdrop of modern China and full of insight into the trickiest questions of motherhood—How do you talk to children about death? When is it okay to lie?—this wry and poignant memoir is a candid look at mortality and belonging as well as a celebration of family.