Alexandra Chang

Days of Distraction follows a young Chinese American woman writing product reviews at a technology magazine, watching the men around her get promoted, then leaving both the job and California to follow her white boyfriend to upstate New York. It is told in fragments, and much of its force comes from what the narrator declines to say aloud about race inside her own relationship. Chang worked as a technology journalist before fiction, which shows in the accuracy of the office scenes. Her later collection Tomb Sweeping works similar ground in shorter forms.