A very mixed bag, then. But as the only anthology of its kind currently available, well worth a look.
Both ideology and art are served, with varying results, in this nonetheless interesting collection of 21 stories by 19 Chinese writers, most of them little known or unknown in the West.
Though the balance of the stories were written since 1970, the shadows of Mao’s Cultural Revolution and a long history of repressive regimentation are visible on virtually every page. And though editor Li-Qun’s brief introductory remarks call attention to “Character-led [as opposed to narrative-driven] fiction,” the volume contains such undistinguished work as his own flaccid account of a young London woman’s dream of performing in Chinese opera (“From Beijing Opera”); Wang Ceng-qi’s shapeless portrayal of relationships among primary school teachers and staff (“Big Chan”); and Shi Tie-sheng’s “Fate,” a discursive autobiographical speculation on the role chance plays in human affairs. There are interesting characterizations in “Hong Taiti,” Cheng Nai-shen’s wistful tale of a gracious, compassionate woman humbled by the Revolution, and Chen Shi-xu’s “The General and the Small Town,” whose eponymous protagonist maintains his dignity and courage throughout the havoc wreaked by shifting political winds. Even better are Feng Ji-cai’s “The Tall Woman and Her Short Husband,” about a devoted couple ruined by malicious gossip and false allegations of treason, and Cai Ce-hai’s briskly told “The Distant Sound of Tree-Felling,” in which an elderly carpenter’s stubborn conventionality threatens the happiness that his long-suffering daughter and compliant apprentice seem destined for. Best of all are two stories by the gifted Su Tong (known here for such memorable fiction as Raise the Red Lantern and Rice). His “Cherry” is a beautifully developed (if unsurprising) ghost story, and “Young Muo” is a tragicomic fabliaux about an egoistic doctor’s son; both deftly display this underrated writer’s absolute mastery of narrative economy and realistic detail.
A very mixed bag, then. But as the only anthology of its kind currently available, well worth a look.Pub Date: Nov. 20, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-70093-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Vintage
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2001
A compulsively readable melodrama.
After her father’s sudden death, a daughter discovers disturbing facts about a sister presumed dead more than two decades earlier.
One way or another, Lisa MacPherson, a musical prodigy, has always dominated the lives of her family. By the age of 17, she's a violin virtuoso with a bright future. Unaccountably, on a winter morning, Lisa’s kayak (though not her body) is discovered in the ice-bound Potomac near the family’s Alexandria, Virginia, home. Shortly after the tragedy, the family moves to North Carolina. Lisa’s younger siblings, Danny, 7, and Riley, 2, will be told only that Lisa suffered from depression and committed suicide. Twenty-three years later, Riley, who has become a high school guidance counselor to help depressed teens like Lisa, is settling her father Frank’s affairs after his death from a heart attack. (Her mother had succumbed to cancer years before.) While getting ready to sell his North Carolina real estate—her childhood home and a trailer park—Riley runs across several people who harbor secrets about her family’s past: Danny, a mentally troubled Iraq War vet, nurses grudges against his parents while living as a virtual hermit on the outskirts of the trailer park. Her father’s friend Tom exhibits a threatening mien. Jeannie, another family friend, appears helpful, but what is she hiding? Riley discovers that her father was paying Tom off, but why? Early on, Lisa’s voice, and her version of events, emerges. We learn that she was accused of murdering her violin teacher and was about to stand trial. Her suicide was faked by her father and Tom, both ex-U.S. Marshals skilled at making people disappear. Her father relocated her to San Diego, where, ignoring Frank’s warnings to avoid music, she found new outlets for her extraordinary talent. Although the plot is not exactly watertight, the revelations are parceled out so skillfully that disbelief remains suspended until the satisfying if not entirely plausible close.
A compulsively readable melodrama.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-01071-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fine first novel that enlivens familiar themes of parenthood and battles against nature.
A couple struggling to settle in the Alaskan wilderness is heartened by the arrival of the child of their dreams—or are they literally dreaming her?
Jack and Mabel, the protagonists of Ivey’s assured debut, are a couple in their early 50s who take advantage of cheap land to build a homestead in Alaska in the 1920s. But the work is backbreaking, the winters are brutally cold and their isolation only reminds them of their childlessness. There’s a glimmer of sunshine, however, in the presence of a mysterious girl who lurks near their cabin. Though she’s initially skittish, in time she becomes a fixture in the couple's lives. Ivey takes her time in clarifying whether or not the girl, Faina, is real or not, and there are good reasons to believe she’s a figment of Jack and Mabel’s imaginations: She’s a conveniently helpful good-luck charm for them in their search for food, none of their neighbors seem to have seen the girl and she can’t help but remind Mabel of fairy tales she heard in her youth about a snow child. The mystery of Faina’s provenance, along with the way she brightens the couple’s lives, gives the novel’s early chapters a slightly magical-realist cast. Yet as Faina’s identity grows clearer, the narrative also becomes a more earthbound portrait of the Alaskan wilderness and a study of the hard work involved in building a family. Ivey’s style is spare and straightforward, in keeping with the novel’s setting, and she offers enough granular detail about hunting and farming to avoid familiar pieties about the Last Frontier. The book’s tone throughout has a lovely push and pull—Alaska’s punishing landscape and rough-hewn residents pitted against Faina’s charmed appearances—and the ending is both surprising and earned.
A fine first novel that enlivens familiar themes of parenthood and battles against nature.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-316-17567-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Reagan Arthur/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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