"The Beijing Duck House in Rockville, Maryland, is not only a beloved go-to setting for meals and celebrations; it is its own world, inhabited by waiters and staff who have been fighting, loving, and aging within its walls for decades. But when disaster strikes, this working family's controlled chaos is set loose. Generous in spirit, unaffected in its intelligence, mutli-voiced, poignant, and darkly funny, Number One Chinese Restaurant is an unforgettable story about the ways that our families destroy us while also keeping us grounded and alive."--Back cover.

"The Beijing Duck House in Rockville, Maryland, is not only a beloved go-to setting for hunger pangs and celebrations; it is its own world, owned and run by the Han family and inhabited by waiters and kitchen staff who have been fighting, loving, and aging within its walls for decades. When disaster strikes, this working family's controlled chaos is set loose, forcing each character to confront the conflicts that fast-paced restaurant life has kept at bay. Generous in spirit, unaffected in its intelligence, multivoiced, poignant, and darkly funny, Number One Chinese Restaurant looks beyond red tablecloths and silkscreen murals to share an unforgettable upstairs-downstairs story about youth and aging, parents and children, and all the ways that our families destroy us while also keeping us grounding and alive."--cover, page 4.

"The Beijing Duck House in Rockville, Maryland, is not only a beloved go-to setting for hunger pangs and celebrations; it is its own world, inhabited by waiters and kitchen staff who have been fighting, loving, and aging within its walls for decades. When disaster strikes, this working family's controlled chaos is set loose, forcing each character to confront the conflicts that fast-paced restaurant life has kept at bay. Owner Jimmy Han hopes to leave his late father's homespun establishment for a fancier one. Jimmy's older brother, Johnny, and Johnny's daughter, Annie, ache to return to a time before a father's absence and a teenager's silence pushed them apart. Nan and Ah-Jack, longtime Duck House employees, are tempted to turn their thirty-year friendship into something else, even as Nan's son, Pat, struggles to stay out of trouble. And when Pat and Annie, caught in a mix of youthful lust and boredom, find themselves in a dangerous game that implicates them in the Duck House tragedy