Memory Piece: Barack Obama's Reading List 2024 by Lisa Ko

An unforgettable story of art, friendship and coming-of-age that cuts across decades from the 1980s to the 2040s, from the author of The Leavers, a National Book Award finalist.

NAMED A VOGUE BEST BOOK OF 2024.

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE READS OF SUMMER 2024.

"Adventurous. . .gritty and refreshingly girl-centric. . . lingers in the imagination." –The New York Times.

“Ko…draws characters with such deftness that they feel wholly alive." –The Washington Post.

"It belongs to an American literary tradition that includes Dana Spiotta, George Saunders, and their patron saint, Don DeLillo." –The Atlantic.

The award-winning author of The Leavers offers a visionary novel of friendship, art, and ambition that asks: What is the value of a meaningful life?

In the early 1980s, Giselle Chin, Jackie Ong, and Ellen Ng are three teenagers drawn together by their shared sense of alienation and desire for something different. “Allied in the weirdest parts of themselves,” they envision each other as artistic collaborators and embark on a future defined by freedom and creativity.

By the time they are adults, their dreams are murkier. As a performance artist, Giselle must navigate an elite social world she never conceived of. As a coder thrilled by the internet’s early egalitarian promise, Jackie must contend with its more sinister shift toward monetization and surveillance. And as a community activist, Ellen confronts the increasing gentrification and policing overwhelming her New York City neighborhood. Over time their friendship matures and changes, their definitions of success become complicated, and their sense of what matters evolves. 

Moving from the predigital 1980s to the art and tech subcultures of the 1990s to a strikingly imagined portrait of the 2040s, Memory Piece is an innovative and audacious story of three lifelong friends as they strive to build satisfying lives in a world that turns out to be radically different from the one they were promised.