Rental House by Weike Wang

Weike Wang’s Rental House delves into the complexities of marriage, midlife, and family dynamics with her signature wit and restraint. Following the trajectory set by her previous novels—Chemistry, about a floundering doctoral student, and Joan Is Okay, which explored a solitary scientist—Wang’s latest shifts the focus to a pair of 35-year-old spouses, Keru and Nate, five years into their marriage.

As the story begins, Keru, Nate, and their sheepdog Mantou are settling into a monthlong stay at a rental house on Cape Cod. Their plan includes hosting their respective parents, but not at the same time—a deliberate choice to avoid inevitable tensions. Keru, a Chinese American, braces herself for her parents’ exacting standards of cleanliness and safety, while Nate, who hails from Appalachia, dreads his parents’ undercurrents of xenophobia and racism. What ensues is a mix of wry humor and quiet exasperation as Keru and Nate navigate their in-laws’ competing expectations for the vacation, alongside their conflicting beliefs about work, family, and marriage.

Five years later, the narrative shifts to another rented house and another vacation, but this time with fractures in both their familial and marital relationships. At 40, Keru and Nate find themselves grappling with a steadiness in their partnership that feels laced with tension. When their holiday is disrupted by unexpected guests and shifting dynamics, the couple faces a breaking point that ultimately propels them toward renewal and a leap into the future.

Wang imbues the novel with a dry humor that softens its moments of tension. The story alternates seamlessly between Keru’s and Nate’s perspectives, capturing their complicated emotions toward their parents: a mix of love, frustration, guilt, and embarrassment. Wang’s ear for dialogue shines, particularly in scenes involving in-laws and flashbacks to remembered exchanges with parents, which are sharp, funny, and painfully relatable. These moments of levity punctuate what is otherwise a subtle, introspective narrative.

At just 200 pages, Rental House is deceptively compact. Wang’s spare, elegant prose tackles themes of intergenerational conflict, cultural and class differences, and the evolving nature of marriage with depth and precision. The novel offers a poignant exploration of how families both nurture and vex, how love and loyalty coexist with exasperation, and what we owe to one another as parents and children. Quiet but rich with insight, Rental House leaves a lasting impression, proving that even within the ordinary rhythms of life, there is room for transformation.