"Written with seemingly effortless grace and in clean-eyed prose, the short stories in Roley’s long-awaited collection are poignant, intimate, and heartbreaking." --R. Zamora Linmark
"Roley's The Last Mistress of Jose Rizal is an appearance equally auspicious to American Son: a demonstration of the prowess of this writer in the middle of a strong literary career. These short stories constitute the continuation and expansion of the family in American Son...."
--Vince Gotera Professor of English and Editor Emeritus of The North American Review
American Son: a novel was released by W.W. Norton
"Heartbreaking... American Son is a gripping book." --New York Times, a Notable Book of the Year.
New York Times Notable Book and Editor's Choice
Los Angeles Times Best Book
Winner of the Association of Asian American Studies Literature Award
Kiriyama Pacific Rim Prize finalist
Salon.com Best of the Month selection
Fiction featured in the California Council for the Humanities’ statewide reading campaign of April 2004, involving libraries, book groups, and classrooms across the state"
"Two Half-Filipino brothers can pass for white, their mother cannot; painful conflicts are in store for everybody in this complex exploration of racism in California, starting in 1993, a year after the Rodney King Riots."
--New York Times Editors, Notable Books of the Year