Five-Star Stranger
What if you could rent a best-friend, fake a family, and still find yourself in the process?
Kat Tang
Imagine living a life where your job is to pretend. For “Stranger,” the narrator, that’s exactly his daily reality: he works for a service that allows clients to hire him as whatever they need — a faux fiancé, a stand-in best friend, even a father to their child. But when one assignment asks him to play father to a nine-year-old girl for years, the lines between role-play and real emotion begin to blur. His identity starts to crack.
Aug 15, 2025
Story behind the story
What makes Five-Star Stranger quietly brilliant is its subtle layering of gig-economy anxiety, emotional ghosts, and the yearning for authenticity. Tang spent years exploring the idea of service-identity — what happens when you are paid to be someone else, and then you begin to wonder who you might have been if you hadn’t broken character. The novel’s premise might sound quirky, but the emotional core is deeply human: fear of being invisible, longing to be seen, and the cost of living someone else’s life.
Creative journey
Tang’s debut was crafted in the quiet hours of a writing routine built between freelance work and city commuting. She kept a journal of the roles people subconsciously play — the “perfect friend,” the “supportive sibling,” the “successful professional” — and wove those observations into the narrative. Her prose is deceptively light, but the ideas are weighty. You’ll feel the humor, you’ll smile at the absurdity, but you’ll also sense the ache beneath it.
About the author
Kat Tang is a debut novelist with a sharp eye for what hides beneath the glossy surface of modern life. Born in China, raised in Japan, and now writing in New York, Kat’s global perspective gives her a unique voice — one that blends quiet observation with emotional complexity. Her writing explores identity, performance, and the surprising places we search for connection.
What readers will take away
Readers will walk away thinking about who they are when nobody is watching. Five-Star Stranger doesn’t offer easy answers; instead, it invites you into a mirror and asks: if all your roles disappeared, what remains? It’s a novel about identity, isolation, and the quiet courage it takes to stop performing and start living.
Looking ahead
Kat Tang is already at work on her next novel, exploring themes of memory, migration, and what home really means in a world where you can be anyone — for a fee or by accident. Keep an eye on her: she’s building a rich voice that feels both timely and timeless.
Fun personal touch
Tang says she often writes in coffee shops late at night, headphones in, listening to ambient city noise. She calls it “the perfect background of anonymity” — a good mood for a book about pretending to belong.
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