Love Can’t Feed You: A Conversation With Author Cherry Lou Sy and English Professor Helen Phillips

This event celebrates the publication of Cherry Lou Sy’s debut novel, Love Can’t Feed You. Sy will be joined in conversation by novelist and Brooklyn College English Professor Helen Phillips. The book is a stunning coming-of-age story that finds Queenie, a young woman attempting to assimilate after immigrating to the United States, adrift between familial expectations and her own burning desires. When Queenie, her younger brother, and their elderly Chinese father arrive in the United States from the Philippines, they find that their Filipina mother—who has been working as a nurse in Brooklyn for the past few years—is a different woman than the one they knew back home. Something in her is different, almost hardened, and she seems distinctly American already. While the move is intended to set the family up for better prospects, financial and cultural challenges prove more daunting than anticipated. On the cusp of adulthood, Queenie dreams of attending college, spending her days immersed in the pages of books. But her parents can’t afford to send both of their children to school, so instead, Queenie rotates through a series of jobs. While she slowly begins to acclimate, her brother withdraws and rebels, and her father’s anger swells. As the pressures of assimilation compound, and the fissures within her family deepen into fractures, Queenie feels caught in the middle of everything. Full of rich prose and the pulsing, sensual curiosity of young adulthood, Love Can’t Feed You is perfect for fans of contemporary coming-of-age novels and novels about the immigrant experience. Exploring shifting notions of home and the disintegration of the American dream, the novel asks readers: What does it mean to be of multiple cultures without a road map for how to belong?
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