The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Ford, Jamie. The Many Daughters of Afong Moy. Atria Books, 2022.

The Many Daughters of Afong Moy alternates between the character of Dorothy Moy, whose story is set in 2045, and the women whose memories she has inherited: her mother Greta (in 2014), her great-grandmother Zoe (in 1927), Zoe’s mother Faye (in 1942), Faye’s mother Lai King (in 1892), and Lai King’s grandmother, who is based on the historical Afong Moy (in 1836) – supposedly the first Chinese woman to arrive in America.

In Act I, Dorothy was out of work and in an unhappy relationship, struggling with dissociative episodes and suicidal thoughts. She worried that her young daughter, Annabel, would grow up to experience similar mental health troubles, and she suspected that both of them were somehow harboring memories from before their own lifetimes. Dorothy’s regular therapist put her in touch with the geneticist Dr. Shedhorn, who conditioned her brain (during induced sleep) to remember her ancestors’ lives in more thorough detail. These vivid dreams helped her to make sense of the mysterious flashbacks.

Faye, a nurse in Kunming during the Second Sino-Japanese War, rescued an American pilot who had crash-landed his plane. The pilot seemed to know her, and to have been looking for her, but he did not survive long enough to explain. Later, she followed a vision of him to where his dead body was lying. A monk offered her words of wisdom.

Following the orders of her cruel manager (and de facto owner), Mr. Hannington, Afong sang and danced onstage while battling loneliness and homesickness. Her spirits lifted when a stranger – a Chinese man – hinted that he had news of her family. Later that night, a group of men injured her during a brutal examination of her bound feet.

As the brains behind an award-winning new dating application, Greta was soon to be a multi-millionaire. Her parents, however, were more concerned about her unmarried status, so – with the help of a matchmaker in China – they fixed her a date with a widower, Sam.

Zoe attended a radical school in England (Summerhill), and she idolized one of the teachers. The school’s permissive ethos took a dark turn when students voted to try running it in the style of a fascist regime, for the sake of experiment.

Lai King was a child when bubonic plague broke out in San Francisco. She and her parents (along with other non-white people) had to stay in Chinatown, which became a quarantine zone.

In Act II, Afong learned that the stranger, Nanchoy, would be her new tutor and translator. She was glad to have a friend, and someone who could write letters home for her. However – after claiming that the boy she loved back in China was dead – Nanchoy began sexually abusing her. Mr. Hannington decided to leave Baltimore due to growing unrest, giving Nanchoy permission to stay and marry Afong. However, Afong went off-script during her final show, causing furious audience members to turn on Nanchoy and the Hanningtons. The wounded Nanchoy told Afong that she was pregnant, before she stabbed him and ran away.

Sam turned out to be the man of Greta’s dreams. However, she lost both him and her job when Carter Branson – a sleazy billionaire who had been grooming her company – triggered a fall in the stock price after making it appear as though he and Greta were having an affair.

Lai King’s dying parents secured her a place on a ship to China. She befriended a boy, Alby, but he fell sick towards the end of the voyage. The crew kept a strict watch on passengers’ health due to fears of contagion, so Lai King tried to hide him away, but he vanished – leaving her to assume that he had jumped overboard.

Zoe went along with Summerhill’s new fascist rules because Guto, the student leading the project, was in possession of a passionate love letter that she had written to her teacher, Mrs. Bidwell. Guto mailed the letter to Mr. Bidwell, who denounced his wife as a depraved adulterer, and committed her to an asylum.

Dorothy became increasingly obsessed with the past, experiencing hallucinations and disorientation even outside of her sessions with Dr. Shedhorn. Her partner Louis, and his meddling mother Louise, disapproved of the unconventional treatment and – when they caught Dorothy on camera in a moment of neglectful parenting – they threatened to take Annabel away from her.

In Act III, Faye risked her life running to help injured civilians. Dorothy left Annabel with friends before begging Dr. Shedhorn for further therapy, despite a gathering storm. Instead, Dr. Shedhorn sent her away with some pills, which Dorothy took all at once. She fell into a coma, during which she revisited her epigenetic memories, putting a positive twist on them. Thus, as Greta, she told the press what she knew about Branson before he had the chance to frame her. As Zoe, she diverted the school vote towards matriarchy instead of fascism, and inspired Mrs. Bidwell to escape her marriage. As Faye – before her arrival in Kunming – she met and fell in love with the pilot, leaving a photo of herself so that he would come looking for her. As Lai King, she kept hold of Alby until he died. Finally, Dorothy wandered the streets of Baltimore until she found Afong, reunited with the young man she had left behind in China.

A police officer – who had been kind to Dorothy earlier in the novel – found her and restored her to consciousness. Dorothy felt optimistic about the future. In the epilogue (set in 2086), Annabel was Dr. Shedhorn’s patient. She reflected on her mother’s life, before setting out to find fulfillment in her own.