I overpaid for my purchase, and in the car again, I unwrapped it with care. Under the sodium streetlamp, I held a gleaming pair of delicate embroidery scissors. I admired them for a moment, their utter sharpness, their ladylike prettiness, and then I clicked them open in my hands.
I brought the blade to the pad of my left ring finger, and before I even felt more than a slight pressure, a dark drop of blood welled up from the cut. It was darker than I was used to seeing, and it ran molasses-slow down to my palm. I considered it for a moment, and then I lapped it up, tasting the copper, and under that the heat of something else.
I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming or not, awake or not, but I caught a glimpse of something shining and gray just beyond my eyes.
I was on Gatsby’s pier in West Egg, and if I turned I would see the green light from Daisy’s dock. Instead, I stared at Gatsby’s beautiful house, which hadn’t fallen to pieces like everything else he touched. It stood, locked up and lonely, but I could see it wouldn’t always be that way.
The sky spun over my head, sun to stars, slowly at first and then faster. The grass grew, the roof fell in, people came to gawk and stare at the site of such a tragedy. Some children threw rocks through the windows; a pack of teenagers, the girls with their hair tied back and the boys in workman’s dungarees, forced the door and then ran out shrieking.
The sky spun and the stars shifted. The west side of the house fell down. The lawn grew even wilder, and sometimes deer and things that looked like deer picked their way across the grass, as sweet and dainty as the starlets that had once stumbled from the doors. A pair of men with still faces and long hands came to stare up at the broken windows, and they stood there, as still as I was on the pier, for seven turnings of the sky and were gone. The house was on fire. Burned. It was rafters and beams and char, and there was nothing gold in the black.
The sky spun. Someone came to cut the grass. Men came to measure the property, followed by an important-looking woman in trousers with her hair cut on a geometric angle, not that much unlike mine. They measured, they argued, and houses sprouted up, first one, then two, and then more, small and sleek and odd.
The sky went still, and far above, I could see foreign stars, stars that moved, stars that winked at me, stars that shot across the sky like comets. Under the wrack and wreck of what had come before, the sky was new, and I reached for it with a yearning eager hand.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
When I mentioned the idea that would eventually become The Chosen and the Beautiful to my agent, Diana Fox, she immediately said, “Stop writing that novel you’re working on and write this!” The novel that I paused is still sitting at the halfway point, but that’s not a terrible price for holding this book in my hands today, so thank you, Diana!
Ruoxi Chen at Tordotcom Publishing continues to be the sensitive and thoughtful editor that every writer hopes for, and she has championed this book from the beginning—I can’t thank her enough for this.
Everyone at Tordotcom Publishing has been so incredibly supportive. Thank you so much to Lauren Anesta, Mordicai Knode, Yvonne Ye, Amanda Melfi, Eileen Lawrence, Stephanie Sirabian, Makenna Sidle, Becky Yeager, Lauren Hougen, Greg Collins, and Angie Rao for all your care and hard work!
Thank you as well to Christine Foltzer for her artistic acumen and to Greg Ruth, who is responsible for my amazing cover. I had a good idea what Jordan looked like before I saw the cover, but when I saw it, I knew.
Thank you to Cris Chingwa, Victoria Coy, Leah Kolman, Amy Lepke, and Meredy Shipp, because you guys are honestly just lovely.
And for Shane Hochstetler, Carolyn Mulroney, and Grace Palmer, I love you guys. You know that, right? I hope you do.
I talk a lot about the selling of souls in The Chosen and the Beautiful. I’ve never thought it would be such a bad thing to do, depending on who you’re selling to.
ALSO BY NGHI VO
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain
The Empress of Salt and Fortune
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NGHI VO is the author of the acclaimed novellas The Empress of Salt and Fortune and When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain. Born in Illinois, she now lives on the shores of Lake Michigan. She believes in the ritual of lipstick, the power of stories, and the right to change your mind. The Chosen and the Beautiful is her debut novel. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Acknowledgments
Also by Nghi Vo
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE CHOSEN AND THE BEAUTIFUL
Copyright © 2021 by Nghi Vo
Cover art by Greg Ruth
Cover design by Christine Foltzer
Edited by Ruoxi Chen
A Tordotcom Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
120 Broadway
New York, NY 10271
www.tor.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-78478-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-78479-7 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250784797
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First Edition: June 2021