One morning, Deming Guo's mother, an undocumented Chinese immigrant named Polly, goes to her job at the nail salon and never comes home. No one can find any trace of her. With his mother gone, eleven-year-old Deming is left with no one to care for him. He is eventually adopted by two white college professors who move him from the Bronx to a small town upstate. They rename him Daniel Wilkinson in their efforts to make him over into their version of an 'all-American boy.' Set in New York and China, the Leavers is the poignant story of how one boy struggles to find his footing and comes into his own when everything he's loved has been taken away. It's also an unflinching look at the difficult decisions a mother faces and how a mother learns to live with the mistakes of her past. This novel explores what it means to be a family and the duality of lives, especially through adoption.