INHERITING MEMORIES

Empire of Glass is based on the stories of a Chinese family, who had hosted the novel's American author. Jocelyn Eikenburg reports.

At the heart of Kaitlin Solimine's lyrical debut novel Empire of Glass are relationships she first forged over two decades ago with her Chinese homestay family in Beijing.

"I hadn't married into this family. Really, there was nothing except the happenstance of having been assigned to them. But we were very, very close," says Solimine, who spent a high school semester living with them in 1996.