THE ODD DAY

Ever since the violent artillery barrages on Quemoy, Matsu, and other areas of Nationalist China's Formosa bastion by the Communists a few years ago, the Reds have chosen every odd day to send over their shells and bombs. This is the unique story of how the people of those islands react in the face of that deadly danger. The authors, established journalists, have taken a cross-section of 150 men and women to show what life is like during a day of shelling. The story soon focuses however on Go-sze Yuan, a fisherman who is trying to escape from the Chinese mainland with his family on his boat. As he is first frustrated in his voyage, then sets out again, we see what other Chinese are doing as part of their daily routine. Ann Fonglang is a girl radio broadcaster, and we are told about her and what she broadcasts. We also meet a gunnery captain, frogmen, American officers of an advisory mission, pedicab drivers, students, an American woman missionary, and dozens of others. We are even taken on a hazardous flight from Formosa over the Chinese mainland. By the time the narrative has switched back to the fugitive fisherman that night, the reader has been given a cohesive, panoramic view of the people living under constant threat of Red attack. A very readable, very human book which tells with compassion of simple people under siege.