“China Syndrome is a fast-moving, truth-is-stranger-than-fiction thriller that doubles as an excellent primer of emerging infections for scientists and laypeople alike. But that’s not all. For readers more captivated by world politics than by microbiology, its chief strength, beyond the superb writing, is a detailed look at China’s culture of secrecy in the throes of a global public health crisis.”   — Los Angeles Times

When the SARS virus broke out in China in January 2003, Karl Taro Greenfeld was the editor of Time Asia in Hong Kong, just a few miles from the epicenter of the outbreak. After vague, initial reports of terrified Chinese boiling vinegar to "purify" the air, Greenfeld and his staff soon found themselves immersed in the story of a lifetime.

Deftly tracking a mysterious viral killer from the bedside of one of the first victims to China''s overwhelmed hospital wards—from cutting-edge labs where researchers struggle to identify the virus to the war rooms at the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva—China Syndrome takes readers on a gripping ride that blows through the Chinese government''s effort to cover up the disease . . . and sounds a clarion call warning of a catastrophe to come: a great viral storm potentially more deadly than any respiratory disease since the influenza of 1918.

“Extraordinary… Greenfeld details what it is like to grow up next to a ‘beautiful’ boy with whom he can never play and never connect and who never returns his love, but who, nonetheless, is the most important fact of his life.” — Michael Thompson, Ph.D., co-author of Raising Cain

“Beautiful and powerful …. A masterpiece of literature and memory.” — Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein: His Life and Universe

“Gripping.” — Washington Post

A WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

In this literary tour de force, Karl Taro Greenfield, the acclaimed journalist and author of China Syndrome, tells the story of his life growing up with his brother, chronicling the hopes, dreams, and realities of life with an autistic sibling. Fans of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking and David Sheff’s Beautiful Boy will find many poignant, moving moments in Boy Alone.

“Pitch-perfect, dry, and smart, this is a vivid portrait of New York, our lives, our loves, and our hearts.” — Susan Orlean, author of Rin Tin Tin and The Orchid Thief“I loved Triburbia, loved dropping in on these wonderful characters with their outsized appetites and ambitions, the lithe and lively prose, the way the book swirls in and out of these lives and maps perfectly a place and a moment in time. Most of all, though, I loved Karl Taro Greenfeld’s deft satirical touch, the searing empathy with which he offers up his privileged, damaged people to the world.”  — Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins 

Karl Taro Greenfeld, author of the acclaimed memoir Boy Alone, delivers a remarkable first novel about a group of families in a fashionable Manhattan neighborhood wrestling with the dark realities of their lives.

Thrown together by circumstance, six fathers—a sound engineer, a sculptor, a film producer, a chef, a memoirist, a gangster—meet each morning at a local Tribeca coffee shop after walking their children to their exclusive school. Over the course of a single school year, we are privy to their secrets, passions, and hopes, and learn of their dreams deferred as they confront harsh realities about ambition, wealth, and sex. And we meet their wives and children, who together with these men are discovering the hard truths and welcome surprises that accompany family, marriage, and real estate at midlife.

Fascinatingly layered and multidimensional, these linked stories, arranged like puzzle pieces, create a powerful portrait of unlikely friends and their neighborhood in transition. Striking chords that range from haunting and heartbreaking to darkly funny and deeply poignant, Triburbia marks the start of a brilliant literary career.

“China Syndrome is a fast-moving, truth-is-stranger-than-fiction thriller that doubles as an excellent primer of emerging infections for scientists and laypeople alike. But that’s not all. For readers more captivated by world politics than by microbiology, its chief strength, beyond the superb writing, is a detailed look at China’s culture of secrecy in the throes of a global public health crisis.”   — Los Angeles Times

When the SARS virus broke out in China in January 2003, Karl Taro Greenfeld was the editor of Time Asia in Hong Kong, just a few miles from the epicenter of the outbreak. After vague, initial reports of terrified Chinese boiling vinegar to "purify" the air, Greenfeld and his staff soon found themselves immersed in the story of a lifetime.

Deftly tracking a mysterious viral killer from the bedside of one of the first victims to China''s overwhelmed hospital wards—from cutting-edge labs where researchers struggle to identify the virus to the war rooms at the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva—China Syndrome takes readers on a gripping ride that blows through the Chinese government''s effort to cover up the disease . . . and sounds a clarion call warning of a catastrophe to come: a great viral storm potentially more deadly than any respiratory disease since the influenza of 1918.

“Extraordinary… Greenfeld details what it is like to grow up next to a ‘beautiful’ boy with whom he can never play and never connect and who never returns his love, but who, nonetheless, is the most important fact of his life.” — Michael Thompson, Ph.D., co-author of Raising Cain

“Beautiful and powerful …. A masterpiece of literature and memory.” — Walter Isaacson, author of Einstein: His Life and Universe

“Gripping.” — Washington Post

A WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

In this literary tour de force, Karl Taro Greenfield, the acclaimed journalist and author of China Syndrome, tells the story of his life growing up with his brother, chronicling the hopes, dreams, and realities of life with an autistic sibling. Fans of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking and David Sheff’s Beautiful Boy will find many poignant, moving moments in Boy Alone.

“Pitch-perfect, dry, and smart, this is a vivid portrait of New York, our lives, our loves, and our hearts.” — Susan Orlean, author of Rin Tin Tin and The Orchid Thief“I loved Triburbia, loved dropping in on these wonderful characters with their outsized appetites and ambitions, the lithe and lively prose, the way the book swirls in and out of these lives and maps perfectly a place and a moment in time. Most of all, though, I loved Karl Taro Greenfeld’s deft satirical touch, the searing empathy with which he offers up his privileged, damaged people to the world.”  — Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins 

Karl Taro Greenfeld, author of the acclaimed memoir Boy Alone, delivers a remarkable first novel about a group of families in a fashionable Manhattan neighborhood wrestling with the dark realities of their lives.

Thrown together by circumstance, six fathers—a sound engineer, a sculptor, a film producer, a chef, a memoirist, a gangster—meet each morning at a local Tribeca coffee shop after walking their children to their exclusive school. Over the course of a single school year, we are privy to their secrets, passions, and hopes, and learn of their dreams deferred as they confront harsh realities about ambition, wealth, and sex. And we meet their wives and children, who together with these men are discovering the hard truths and welcome surprises that accompany family, marriage, and real estate at midlife.

Fascinatingly layered and multidimensional, these linked stories, arranged like puzzle pieces, create a powerful portrait of unlikely friends and their neighborhood in transition. Striking chords that range from haunting and heartbreaking to darkly funny and deeply poignant, Triburbia marks the start of a brilliant literary career.