Oh Lisa See. If I’ve ever come close to a destructive relationship with someone, it’s definitely you. Your first book I devoured, and came back for seconds. Your second kept me hanging on, frustration after frustration, to ultimately disappoint in a huge way. But I still remembered the good times we had together, and so I couldn’t help but try your third. Sigh. I wanted so much to like it, truly I did.
A good story of sisters immigrating to America, but lacked any satisfaction in the ending
Genre: fiction, historical
Plot: Pearl and May are two sisters, growing up in the “Paris of Asia” in the 1920s. They are young, rich, and beautiful, enjoying the high life of modern women. That is, of course, until their father bankrupts himself and is forced to marry them to his debtor’s sons, just as the Japanese begin their conquest. Forced to flee to San Francisco, they must learn to make a life with the strangers they have married, facing racial and economical hardships as they mourn for their former lives as “beautiful girls”.
Structure: Each of the chapters had a jaunty title such as “a piece of jade” or “one inch of gold”. They were strictly chronological, though toward the end the space between them lengthened considerably. The narration is from Pearl’s perspective.
Execution: Lisa See reminds me a little bit of what Patrick O’Brien would be if he set his heart on China instead of the British navy. In other words, they are both great on the nitty-gritty details that really count in historical fiction, but in my eyes, weak on the plot.
At first, the novel was very well executed. The plot was surprising, and you really felt emotionally compelled along with Pearl at each turn. What was especially well done—besides the historical accuracy and, as I always harp on, the use of native language-to-English ratio—was the relationship between Pearl and her sister May. This was a complicated one, and just as in the real world, they had ups and downs which were realistically portrayed.
Things got into a bit of a lull toward the middle, where everything seemed to be going just swimmingly for everyone involved. In the final pages, the plot picks up again at an almost frenetic pace as tragedy occurs and family secrets are spilled, sending a disillusioned daughter rushing off to Communist China. Her mother desperately scrapes up the money to follow her, determined to bring her back to the US safely. And…that’s where the story ends.
I felt like screaming. Did she get her back? Were they ever reconciled after the truth came out? But See obviously felt she had reached her goal or deadline or whatever and abruptly brought things to an end. This frustrated me more than I can adequately convey, and in reality soured my opinion of the novel much more than I had thought of it up until that point.
Theme: Shanghai, San Francisco, Chinatown, Chinese-Americans, Chinese Immigration Exclusion Act, sisterhood
Read this if you so love Chinese culture you’d read anything, anything about it.
3 out of 5 stars
Other works:
Although I’ve read both Peony in Love and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan I would actually only recommend the latter.
If you liked this, you might also like:
Ha Jin’s Waiting and A Good Fall
Alan Brennert’s Honolulu
Yoshiko Uchida’s Picture Bride