In the Garden Behind the Moon: A Memoir of Loss, Myth, and Magic

Out May 28, 2024

“History and magic blend to create…a most unforgettable memoir” — Manhattan Book Review

“An immense, rich, and magnificent experience.” — Jared Smith, author of A Sphere Encased in Fires and Life.

Chan shows her readers the light, the “Chan magic,” on the flip-side of darkness. —Christine Garcia, Psy.D., CEO of Side by Side

In this expansive memoir, Alexandra Chan reveals how art and story are limitless sources for inner strength and personal awakening. Her Chinese brush paintings illuminate magical descriptions and remarkable lives. Chan’s art reminds us to imagine and to find connection and beauty all around us. — Austen Barron Bailey, Ph.D., Award-winning art historian, author, & Chief Curator of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art

Alexandra Chan thinks she has life figured out until, in the Year of the Ram, the death of her father—her last parent—brings her to her knees, an event seemingly foretold in Chinese mythology. A left-brained archaeologist and successful tiger daughter, Chan finds her logical approach to life utterly fails her in the face of this profound grief. Unable to find a way forward, she must either burn to ash or forge herself anew.

Slowly, painfully, wondrously, she discovers that her father and her ancestors have left threads of renewal in the artifacts and stories of their lives. In a long-lost interview conducted by Roosevelt’s Federal Writers’ Project, a basket of war letters written from the Burmese jungle, a box of photographs, her world travels, and a deepening relationship to her own art, the archaeologist and lifelong rationalist makes her greatest discovery to date: the healing power of enchantment.

In an epic story that travels from prerevolution China to the South under Jim Crow, from the Pacific theater of WWII to the black sands of Reynisfjara, Iceland, and beyond, Chan takes us on a universal journey to meaning in the wake of devastating loss, sharing the insights and tools that allowed her to rebuild her life and resurrect her spirit. Part memoir, part lyrical invitation to new ways of seeing and better ways of being in dark times, the book includes beautiful full-color original Chinese brush paintings by the author and fascinating vintage photographs of an unforgettable cast of characters. In the Garden Behind the Moon is a captivating family portrait and an urgent call to awaken to the magic and wonder of daily life.

(Flashpoint, May 28, 2024)