Love and Other Consolation Prizes / Jamie Ford / 304 pages

This is Jamie Ford's fourth book.  It is based on the true story of a young boy who was auctioned off at the 1909 World's Fair in Seattle.  Ernest Young is a Chinese boy whose starving mother manages to get him on a boat sailing to America.  Ernest is one of many young Chinese children being taken to America.  They hope to be adopted or sponsored, but many are just put to work.  Ernest is sponsored by a rich patron and starts to get a good education.  However, when he aspires to reach for a higher status in his life his sponsor does not approve.  She makes arrangements for him to be auctioned at the World's Fair.  Ernest is bought by a madam of a prostitution house to become a house boy.  There Ernest meets the young "sister" of the madam and reunites with a girl from his boat journey to America who is now a maid at the madam's house.  The story is told in two time periods, the 1962 Seattle World's Fair and the 1909 Seattle World's Fair.