Summary

Part One: They See Themselves opens with an omniscient narrator reminiscing on Leo Chao's 35-year-old Chinese restaurants in Haven, Wisconsin. The community enjoyed the food while the Chao family struggled. A year after an unknown scandal, the community claims no one could have known how terrible the oldest son Dagou was.

On December 21st, Fa-mi-lee, James meets an older man with a photograph of a family and an address in Illinois. As James leads the man to the right train, the man seemingly dies of a heart attack. James takes the man’s bag onto his own train to Haven.

Be On My Side shifts to Ming driving James to Haven. James gets a text from Dagou and Ming wonders how to explain how the Chao family fell apart. Dagou is dating Katherine, but Ming thinks he is actually sleeping with...