The Third Generation Shore

The Three Generations of the Lin Family

A long realist novel about immigration, centered on the notorious curse of inheritance across three generations in North America's Chinese community. It follows the fortunes of the Lin family, immigrants from Fujian, over more than sixty years. In the 1960s, Lin Jingyuan traveled to California to make his way in the world. With his strong technical skills, he seized the opportunities created by Silicon Valley's growth, painstakingly built a parts manufacturing business, and spent half a lifetime's savings on property. His greatest wish was to put down firm roots overseas and build a Chinese family that would endure for generations. The second-generation heir, Lin Chengan, was a U.S.-born ABC who grew up caught between two cultures. He witnessed firsthand the invisible barriers that Asian Americans faced in the workplace, while his marriage and career repeatedly collided with his father's traditional beliefs. By the time the third generation, Lin Mailun, was born, his ancestral Chinese culture had been completely severed. He spoke no Chinese, cared nothing for the family's past struggles, refused to take over the business, and had values entirely shaped by his adopted home. Heavy inheritance taxes, social barriers, and widening generational divides battered the family enterprise in turn. The business accumulated through the hard work of the older generations suffered repeated losses and eventually changed hands. The old obsession with crossing the ocean to reach a distant shore slowly came to nothing: three generations, three different lives. The first fought desperately to come ashore, the second struggled in uncertainty, and the third felt no homesickness at all. Through the rise and fall of one family, the author coolly examines the many real-world challenges of wealth lost overseas and cultural heritage broken across generations, exploring where those adrift can truly find a home and what it means to stay rooted.