By Kavita Mistry
by Cathryn Conroy (Dublin, Ohio): With evocative descriptions of everything from the thorns of a kapok tree to the sooty grime of a train, this lovely novel by Gail Tsukiyama will transport you to China at the beginning of the Chinese Cultural Revolution when so many traditional elements of Chinese society were brutally purged—including many who disagreed with the government and had the courage to say so. It was a dangerous time.
It’s 1957. Sheng and Kai Ying are happily married with a 7-year-old son named Tao. They live in Sheng’s family’s villa in Guangzhou, a bustling port city on the Pearl River, along with his aging father, Wei, and an old family friend, Auntie Song. The family endures two crises. Although Mao has decreed “Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend,” the government cracks down hard on any one with a dissenting point of view. One day, Sheng is arrested for writing a letter criticizing the Communist Party and is sent 1,000 miles away to Luoyang, a diminished industrial city, to be “reeducated,” a brutal years-long process of intense labor and near starvation that most do not survive.
One year later, Tao is climbing the kapok tree in the villa’s courtyard in an attempt to see the peaks of White Cloud Mountain in the far distance, but he slips and falls 30 feet to hard surface below. While his injuries are severe, he survives the fall, but it forever changes all their lives. And then during a monsoon, a 15-year-old pregnant girl stumbles into the courtyard in hard labor. Who is she? Why did she choose this home? Meanwhile, secrets abound in this household, but Wei’s secret is so dark and disturbing, it is taking a toll on his health.
This is a beautifully written historical novel filled with grace and remarkable insight into the human condition, especially when lives are irrevocably torn asunder and the only way to survive is through courage. But as sad and troubling as it is, the story ends with a sense of hope and redemption.