Old Wives’ Tales

In this brilliant sliding doors debut, a Chinese American couple’s love story is told and retold

Elizabeth and Simon are newly married. Elizabeth is waiting for her green card and spends the winter in Chicago staining her fingers with pomegranate seeds, dreaming of home.

Elizabeth and Simon can’t get pregnant, and something unseen is leaving bruises on Elizabeth’s body as she sleeps, making rest impossible.

Elizabeth and Simon are having a new baby, and as they convert a closet into a nursery, Elizabeth is cursed with a magical second sight.

In these ten linked stories, echoing oral traditions from around the world, Julie Zhou re-spins old wives’ tales: from Chinese folklore to nursery rhymes, from the myth of Persephone to “The Princess and the Pea.” The result is an astonishing feat of storytelling that reimagines fairy tale and reality, making both come to exuberant life on the page.

• “A luminous, brilliant debut about the mythic weight of love—each sentence is a finely crafted delight.”
  Jade Song, author of I Love You Don't Die and Chlorine
• “In Old Wives’ Tales, we peek into the quiet intimacies of Elizabeth and Simon’s lives, which at times feels like looking through the windows of an old friend's home. Moving, beautifully written, and, at times bordering on fantastical, this collection of linked stories exudes tenderness, and Julie Zhou’s prose is as rich and luscious as sinking your teeth into a perfectly ripe piece of fruit.”
  Monika Kim, author of Molka and The Eyes Are the Best Part