374 (2014 #2). The Full Moon Bride

by Shobhan Bantwal

This book was the January selection for my local book club.  It's about 30-year-old Indian-American lawyer Soorya Giri, who still lives at home with her immigrant parents, her wealthy doctor father and his wife.  Soorya doesn't consider herself attractive - she's on a diet throughout the book, which she constantly (and irritatingly) refers to - and consents to "bride viewings" in an effort to get married.

These don't go well until she meets Rajesh "Roger" Vadepalli, to whom she is instantly attracted.  She thinks he's just after her family's money, though, since Roger isn't the typical Indian-American male pursuing a lucrative career in medicine, law, engineering, or computer science.  He wants to produce plays.

The romance plot line is somewhat predictable,  but I enjoyed learning more about Indian-American culture.  Soorya is a very human character who gets a bit sarcastic when she thinks the worst of others.  It was refreshing to see that other cultures - Indian-American in this case - have their own prejudices against the (so-called majority) whites as well as other races, after reading so many books where whites are always painted as the villains. 

Author Shobhan Bantwal was born and raised in India and came to the United States when she was a young bride in an arranged marriage.  She certain understands and can relate the cultural conflicts of immigrant Indian-Americans and their US-born offspring.  Her website says, "Welcome to Bollywood in a book!" and that's what this is - a light, entertaining read.  Not a lot to discuss in book club, but a perfect book to read during or just after a vacation.

© Amanda Pape - 2014

[This book was borrowed and returned via interlibrary loan.]

352 (2013 #36). Breath, Eyes, Memory

by Edwidge Danticat

I picked up this book at a Friends of the Library fill-the-box-for-$5 sale, probably grabbing it because of the intriguing title.  It had been sitting in my TBR shelves for a while, and as it was short, I decided to give it a try.  I was extremely disappointed.

The book is set partly in Haiti and partly in the eastern United States, and focuses on three generations of women:  Sophia, her mother Martine and aunt Atie, and grandmother Ife.  The characters are one-dimensional and the plot is boring.  Danticat works in all sorts of feminist issues:  rape, genital mutilation, virginity, sexual abuse.

Unfortunately, there isn't enough description of Haiti and life there, which might have redeemed the book for me.  Not recommended.

© Amanda Pape - 2013

[This book was purchased at a Friends of the Library book sale, and it will be donated back to be re-sold.]

344 (2013 #28). The Round House

by Louise Erdrich,
read by Gary Farmer

I can see why this book won the 2012 National Book Award for Fiction.  Besides being a well-written story, it highlights a major issue in Native American tribal law - the "difficulty of prosecuting crimes of sexual violence on reservations," according to author Louise Erdrich, who is Native American herself.

This story is set in 1988, and is told by Antone Bazil Coutts Jr. (known as Joe) as an adult, looking back on that spring and summer of his 13th year. 

At the beginning of the book, Joe's mother Geraldine, a tribal enrollment specialist, is violently raped.  She retreats into her bedroom and for a long time, won't talk about what happened.  Joe and his father, a tribal judge, discuss the case and try to determine who did it from previous case files.  Joe and his friends, Cappy, Angus, and Zack, do some exploring on their own and turn up more possible evidence.

Eventually Geraldine talks and it's clear who committed the crime.  It's also likely he murdered a young Native American girl and her baby.  The problem is, Geraldine can't remember exactly where she was raped.  It was near the sacred tribal round house, but it may have occurred on nearby state or federal land rather than on tribal lands.  This is important, because in 1988, a tribe could not prosecute non-tribal members who committed sex crimes within the boundaries of the reservation. The rapist looks like he's going to get away with it.

This evolving storyline is interspersed with tales of life on the reservation, and with Native American legends, the latter told mostly by Joe's grandfather Mooshum (who I understand was a character in Erdrich's earlier novel, A Plague of Doves).   There are many other interesting characters in the story as well, such as Sonya, the former stripper who lives with Joe's uncle; Father Trevor, the Catholic priest, and Linda Wishkob, a white woman adopted into a Native American family.

The story is suspenseful and the characters are fascinating, which kept me going despite a slow reading with unusual pauses by Native American actor Gary Farmer.  On the plus side for the audiobook, the print version of Erdrich's novel doesn't use quotation marks around speech, and Farmer's narration helps make it clear when a character is speaking.

© Amanda Pape - 2013

[The audiobook, and a print copy for reference, were borrowed from and returned to my university library and interlibrary loan, respectively.]

228 (2011 #33). Dreams of Joy

by Lisa See

This eagerly-anticipated sequel to Shanghai Girls is being released today.  It's not absolutely necessary to read the prequel before reading this book, but it's helpful, as it continues the story where Shanghai Girls left off.

Dreams of Joy begins in August 1957, when nineteen-year-old Chinese-American Joy Louie has just learned that the woman she thought was her mother (Pearl) is really her aunt, and her Aunt May is really her mother.  The man she thought was her father has just committed suicide (which Joy thinks is her fault), and her real father, Z. G. Li, is an artist in Red China.  Angry, naive, and rebellious, she decides to leave Los Angeles' Chinatown to find her father in Shanghai.  Pearl follows.  The story, covering the next three years and the Great Leap Forward, is told in alternating chapters by Pearl and Joy.  Joy's initial idealism in a rural commune followed by growing horror and disillusionment with famine and corruption contrasts well with Pearl's nostalgia in Shanghai followed by practicality and resourcefulness in saving her daughter.

Some of the things that Joy says and does and that happen to her are unrealistic (getting into China and finding her father as easily as she does, and meeting Chairman Mao, for instance).  At times I wanted to throttle her, because she made so many poor choices, but of course that was necessary for the plot.  It was riveting and I couldn't put the book down.  Joy does mature, thankfully.  The book's strengths are See's thorough research that brings this sorry period in Chinese history to life (I have to wonder if they'll let her into the country again), and her portrayal of motherhood and sisterhood. 

© Amanda Pape - 2011

[I received an advance reader's edition from the publisher.  It will be passed on to someone else to enjoy.]

199 (2011 #4). On Gold Mountain

by Lisa See

This was Lisa See's first book back in 1995, back when she'd been the West Coast correspondent for Publisher's Weekly for twelve years and wasn't known as the novelist she is today.

Subtitled "The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of a Chinese-American Family," it's an account of the See family history, starting with her great-great-grandfather, Fong Dun Shung.  He left China for the Gold Mountain - the United States - in 1866, working on the transcontinental railroad as a herbalist, and returned to China five years later a rich man.  Meanwhile, his son Fong See comes to America looking for his dad, starts selling crotchless underwear to brothels, and ends up marrying a Caucasian woman.  Lisa's grandfather and father also married Caucasians, making Lisa only 1/8 Chinese, with red hair and freckles.

Fong See becomes a very successful merchant in Chinatown in Los Angeles, lives to around 100, and has four wives (some concurrently, three married to him in China and one of those brought back to America) and twelve children.  Lisa tells the stories of all of them, Fong See's brother and his three wives and twelve children, the family her great aunt marries into, and the families of her Caucasian ancestors as well.  The result is a warts-and-all saga of a family that is also representative of the entire Chinese-American immigrant experience.  It's especially interesting to read how they got around the various laws designed to discourage their immigration and living in the United States.

There is an extensive list of sources (including  interviews with nearly 100 relatives and others), broken down by chapter, but unfortunately no index.  There are also maps and a rough family tree at the beginning of the book.  I found myself referring to the latter often to figure out who was connected, and how. See has also included black-and-white photographs of many of the people and places discussed in her book.  Her five years of research are obvious, and it's understandable after reading this book why her historical fiction (Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Shanghai Girls, Peony in  Love) is so good.  I admire See for writing her family's history - I hope I can do the same some day.

© Amanda Pape - 2011

[This book was borrowed from and returned to my local public library.]

181 (2010 #46). Peony in Love

by Lisa See,
read by  Jodi Long

I've had the paperback copy of this book sitting on my bookshelves for over two years, but it wasn't until I needed a short (it's abridged) audiobook to listen to between two month's book club selections that I decided to pick this one up.

Turned out to be a good selection for October, too.  An online group in whose discussions I often participate usually tries to pick something appropriate (horror or supernatural or both) for this month, and this book would have fit the bill, for the title character spends more than half of it as a "hungry ghost."

Set in 17th century China, almost-sixteen Peony is obsessed with The Peony Pavilion, an opera where the female protagonist, a lovesick girl, dies but is brought back to life by her lover.  Soon Peony finds her life paralleling that of the opera.  What makes this book really interesting is the way Lisa See incorporates the true story of "The Three Wives Commentary" on the opera (the first books written and published by women anywhere in the world) as the framework for her narrative.  An author's note provides the details.

Besides the fascinating research behind it, this historical fantasy also has a lot to say about love - romantic love and mother love- and contains some beautiful poetry:

In spring, moved to passion; in autumn, only regret.

The trees are bare.
In the distance, the honks of mourning geese.
If only my tears of blood could dye red the blossoms of the plum tree.
But I will never make it to spring.
My heart is empty and my life has no value anymore.
Each moment a thousand tears.

The audiobook was an author-approved abridged version read by Asian-American actress Jodi Long.  A very slight lisp became endearing in the voice of Peony, and her renditions of other, particularly older, Chinese women were quite amusing.  I'm looking forward to "re-reading" my paperback copy sometime for all the little details the abridgment left out.

© Amanda Pape - 2010

[This audiobook was borrowed from and returned to my local public library.  My paperback copy of the book was sent to me by the Random House Readers' Circle after registering my book club with them.]

172 (2010 #37). Shanghai Girls

by Lisa See

Historical fiction set in Shanghai, China, and California from 1937 to 1957; Lisa See has brought this story of Chinese-American immigrants to life. The narrator, Pearl, age 21, and her younger sister May are "beautiful girls" in Shanghai, "the Paris of Asia," in the 1930s, living a relatively modern life dressing in gorgeous clothes and posing for photographs and paintings used in calendars and other advertisements. The girls live the good life, each thinking that their parents favor the other, as their father has become wealthy in the rickshaw business. Unfortunately, he gambles it all away and sells the girls as brides to Chinese emigrants now in America.

The girls spend one night with their new husbands and are supposed to travel to Hong Kong to meet them later. They deliberately miss their boat and become trapped when the Japanese invade Shanghai. They undergo hardships getting out of China, at Angel Island dealing with the repercussions of the Chinese Exclusion Act, and living in Los Angeles' Chinatown over the next 20 years, into the Second Red Scare.

See has woven these and numerous other historical events and situations (such as paper sons), real places (like China City) and people into the novel, and the research is the novel's strength. So too is the portrayal of sisterhood and the loyalties and jealousies it generates. May gives birth to a daughter (not by her husband) while interred at Angel Island, and Pearl (who did consummate her marriage) agrees to pretend Joy is hers. The book's weakness is its ending - it obviously signals a sequel to come.

I think this book would be a great one for a discussion. I'd expect different opinions on which sister is "better" (my vote is for Pearl, perhaps because I'm also the older sister). The American history and experiences of Chinese immigrants described in the book would also generate a lot of interest.

© Amanda Pape - 2010

[I purchased this hardbound copy for $5 at the Hood County, Texas, Friends of the Library book sale, and will be donating it to my university's collection.]

5. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

by Lisa See

This is a sad story of friendship and tragedy, set in the 19th century in a remote part of China. Author Lisa See, who is Chinese-American, did extensive research in China to provide the cultural and historical background for her story.

The narrator, Lily, is an 80-year-old widow looking back from 1903 on her long life. She describes in detail the process of her footbinding at age 7 (which killed her younger sister). She also details her education, particularly in nu shu, or “women’s [secret phonetic] writing.”

Shortly after this, a prominent matchmaker suggests for Lily a laotong, or “old same” match with a girl from the clan of a potential husband for Lily. Snow Flower shares Lily’s birthday and other characteristics, but is of higher social standing. As laotong, they can be friends for life, and a close bond develops between them over the next ten years, the only real highlight in lives lived mostly in an upstairs room. They send nu shu messages to each other on a fan when they are apart.

At 17, Lily marries into a prominent family from Snow Flower’s village, and a month later Snow Flower marries. Lily finally gets to visit Snow Flower’s family of origin, and learns the truth about her friend. Lily’s feelings of betrayal color her relationship with Snow Flower (and others) from then on, but their friendship continues. Many years later, after a typhoid outbreak and the Taiping Rebellion further changes their lives, a misinterpreted nu shu character on the fan causes even more sorrow and regret.

Descriptions of many other Chinese customs, folktales, and the numerous ceremonies and festivals were fascinating. I thought it was particularly interesting that a woman continued to live primarily with her family of origin until she first became pregnant, and even after that spent numerous festivals with her natal family. I also thought it was interesting that in their dialect, the word for “wife” is the same as the word for “guest” (page 112), the word for “child” sounds the same as that for “shoe” (page 90), and the first character in the word for “mother love” means “pain” (page 4).

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a fascinating and heart-rending book that was hard to put down, with a message about true friendship that applies even today – accepting your friends they way they are, not as you wish them to be.

ETA 9/17/08: I "re-read" this book in order to lead a book club discussion on it via audiobook. The version was abridged, but did not leave out anything pertinent to the main story (with the possible exception of the fact that Lily chose - to avoid bickering - concubines for her husband late in life, to increase his prestige in their city and to please him). The narrator was Jodi Long, who does a great job expressing the emotions of the main characters, especially during foot binding, but who has a slight lisp which is distracting. This story, though, continues to grow on me, and I can't recommend it highly enough.