An engrossing fictional exploration of family, culture, and what it means to belong in both China and America.
Two sisters grow up without meeting and follow different but intersecting paths in 20th-century China and the United States.
In this novel, Meyer (Myths in Stone: Religious Dimensions of Washington, D.C., 2001) traces the temporal and spiritual journeys of the two daughters of an American missionary stationed in China before World War II. Victoria, the older one, is kidnapped as a child by a religious sect that sees her as its future leader. Livia, born after Victoria’s disappearance, endures an internment camp with her parents during the war, then grows up in midcentury America. The narrative moves back and forth between the two sisters as Victoria, now known as Bu’er, learns traditional healing and survives Mao’s ascendancy and the Cultural Revolution in an out-of-the-way village, gradually coming to terms with her role in the religious community. Meanwhile, Livia converts to Roman Catholicism, experiences the 1960s as a college student, pursues a Ph.D., and becomes a scholar of Chinese religion. As relations between China and the United States are restored in the 1970s and ’80s, Livia is able to return to her country of birth and promises her dying mother she will find out what happened to Victoria. The plot, sedate and expansive for most of the book, takes a Robert Ludlum–esque turn as Livia faces challenges from suspicious locals and government officials in her search for Victoria, but it returns to a more contemplative pace in the final chapters. Meyer is clearly knowledgeable about Chinese history and culture (an author’s note explains his personal connections to the country), and the text is full of rich details that enhance the book’s fully realized setting. Memorable secondary characters play key roles in both storylines, each distinctly drawn and thoroughly developed. The occasionally repetitive narrative (for instance, there are multiple conversations about Livia becoming a department chair at a college) could have been more tightly edited. But the tale avoids getting bogged down in philosophical discussions and maintains its momentum as the sisters undergo their separate religious evolutions.
An engrossing fictional exploration of family, culture, and what it means to belong in both China and America.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9966864-7-1
Page Count: 365
Publisher: IngramElliott Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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