Year of the Dragon & Everything After

The final chapter in the Lunar New Years series—a candid, unforgettable farewell to the long road behind.Charlie Birch never planned to stay in Asia, but here he is—older, wiser, and maybe finally ready to stop running from himself. Year of the Dragon & Everything After brings the Lunar New Years saga to a close with a powerful story of fatherhood, identity, and the emotional wreckage of personal truth. Charlie is no longer just a reckless expat—he's a husband, a father, and a man confronted by the ghosts of his past. As he chases freelance gigs and dodges burnout in Taipei, the arrival of his firstborn son sends shockwaves through his carefully controlled chaos. As the relationship with his Taiwanese benefactor, Captain Felix, begins to sour, Charlie looks for a way out. But it's an unexpected letter from the Illinois Department of Public Health that truly upends everything. Honest, darkly funny, profane, and deeply human, this is Charlie's most vulnerable story yet. If Year of the Rat was an escape, Year of the Dragon is a homecoming. Fans of memoirs by Hunter S. Thompson, Cheryl Strayed, and Augusten Burroughs will appreciate the grit and grace of this moving conclusion.