Corvus to publish fiction debut from Tiger Mother author Chua

Corvus has acquired the rights to The Golden Gate from Amy Chua, the bestselling author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Bloomsbury).

Corvus publishing director Sarah Hodgson acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Julian Alexander at The Soho Agency, on behalf of Theresa Park at Park & Fine. North American rights went to Kelley Ragland at Minotaur Books, part of the St Martin’s Press Publishing Group. The Golden Gate will be published in hardback and e-book on 21st September with a paperback to follow in the summer of 2024.

The synopsis for Chua’s debut fiction title reads: “The Golden Gate takes place in Berkeley in 1944 and follows Homicide Detective Al Sullivan (a mixed race former army officer who is still reckoning with his own history) who has just left the Claremont Hotel bar when a presidential candidate is assassinated in one of the rooms upstairs. 

“This is not the first suspicious death at the Claremont: as Sullivan investigates the case, he keeps finding connections to the tragic death of a seven-year-old girl, a member of the prominent and wealthy Bainbridge family. As the case leads Sullivan back to the three remaining (and mesmerising) Bainbridge heiresses, he’s determined not to let anything—not the powerful influence of the Bainbridge matriarch, not the political aspirations of Berkeley’s DA, not the interests of China’s first lady—distract him from the truth.”

Chua said: “Growing up in a small town called El Cerrito, across from the bay from glamorous San Francisco, I often wondered what life was life for the affluent people in the big city, living in the shadow of that famous bridge. As the daughter of immigrants who was often teased about my Chinese accent, slanty eyes, and funny clothes, I was acutely conscious of the gap between insiders and outsiders, haves and have-nots, in a state shaped by constant waves of migration and the lure of a better life. I wove my story around actual events, like the Japanese American internment, labour unrest in the shipyards where America’s battleships were built, and the christening of the Golden Gate Bridge, as well as colourful real-life characters like Madame Chiang Kai-Shek and forensic pioneer August Vollmer of the Berkeley Police Department. As a California native, exploring some of the darker episodes of the Golden State’s history was a revelation and also a window into some of the conflicts that live on in our turbulent era.”

Hodgson added: “It’s a privilege and a pleasure to welcome Amy Chua to the Corvus list with The Golden Gate. She has given us an elegantly noir-tinged, twisting tale that reimagines the classic detective novel with a contemporary understanding of the complex historical narratives that converge in 1940s California. It’s also a brilliantly plot-driven and hugely entertaining read that I’m thrilled to share with readers this autumn.”

Chua is the John M Duff, Jr Professor of Law at Yale Law School. She is an internationally bestselling author of several non-fiction titles, including her 2011 memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which has been translated into over 30 languages. Chua graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and cum laude from Harvard Law School. After practising on Wall Street, she joined the Yale Law School faculty in 2001. The Golden Gate is her fiction debut.