Kept: A Comedy of Sex and Manners - Softcover

"An impressively deft debut...The writing is immaculate...Hong has crafted a delightfully erudite and justifiably literary novel...It is as smart and clever as it is deliciously entertaining."
-- Christine Thomas, Chicago Tribune

"Rich, insightful, and wildly entertaining. A wonderfully assured debut."
-- Helen Walsh, author of Brass

"You'll be laughing from cover to cover."
-- Halley Bondy, New York Daily News

"A high-spirited, witty and entertaining tale with an unusually audacious heroine and a dazzlingly global frame of reference."
-- Margaret Drabble, author of The Seven Sisters and The Sea Lady

"Not for nothing does Hong begin the book with a quote from Thackeray; this is Vanity Fair's close cousin."
-- Kirkus Reviews

"We wouldn't want to miss Jude's tantrums...witty disdain leads the way."
-- Elinor Lipman, The Washington Post Book World

"Clever, smart, and oh so terribly funny, Kept is perfect for the beach tote or for sneaking into your graduate seminar. This is a volume to treasure."
-- Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan and The Russian Debutante's Handbook

Cut off by her upper-crust Korean family, Judith Lee finds herself unable to cope in the working world and eventually applying her manners, good looks, and artistic knowledge to a vocation as a courtesan in the luxurious townhouse of Madame Tartakoff, where she is a paid companion to a classical violinist and falls in love outside of her clientele. A first novel. Reprint. 15,000 first printing.