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One of my absolute favorites this year, this book is an absolute treasure – a reading experience to be cherished, and in all likelihood, revisited.
A great big book, – not in volume, but in absolute capacity to charm and engage, this book held this reader captive from the very first page, with a force that persevered right through to the emotional and inspirational ending.
An epic heart-tugging journey, exploring the shifting sands of memory, across generations, this story spans six female lives, stirred up and swirling, each seeking their own form of redemption and transformational healing.
Beginning in 1836 with the fictionalized recounting of the tale of true-life Afong Moy, the first Chinese woman “to set foot on American soil”, the author weaves a wildly fascinating leap forward six generations, criss-crossing back and forth in time to explore the fate of daughter, grand-daughter and further descendants, each story mesmerizing in its own telling, becoming even more so as the generational connections crystallize.
As each woman battles loss, trauma and an aching vulnerability that cannot be appeased, experiences, behaviors, patterns and threads connecting the stories intertwine, making for a put-your-feet-up, deeply-immersive read, one that involves visiting with characters so real they are hard to let go of.
As Afong adjusts to life in the US, (her bound-feet and Asian heritage reducing her career opportunities to that of an indentured side-show act) her story mingles with those of her descendants, including :
-Lai King – a child in 1892’s San Francisco, Lai King is living the horror and devastation of the “Black Death” plague, as it crashes into the lives of those she loves and depends on.
-Faye – in 1942, Fay is a traumatized middle-aged nurse, attending to injuries on the battlefield affecting US flight troops defending China from the Japanese in WWII.
-Zoe – a teenager attending a bohemian English boarding school in the year 1927, Zoe is unconventional at-heart, learning to come to terms with her own intrinsic life-truths.
-Greta – in 2014, Greta is an ironically-solitary Seattle-based coder, designer of a feminist dating platform destined to change the face of commercial online-matchmaking.
-Dorothy – living in the climate-ravaged world of Seattle in the year 2045, Dorothy is a poet and a survivor, battling an emotionally-abusive relationship and life-long mental illness in a desperate attempt to provide hope for herself, and her young daughter, Annabel.
Equal parts feminist manifesto, historical journey, love story, and philosophical mystery, this is a book that hits so many gorgeous notes, is written with such tender care, and comes packed with such an abundance of heart-tugging hope and longing, that it’s impossible not to find oneself completely lost within its spell.
As the author skillfully blends leading-edge neuroscience, hard-hitting historical truths, and delicately-penned psychological insights, several interesting themes are explored, including:
Are our lives truly our “own”, or do we leave a genetic memory trail that lingers, other generations caught up in its wake?
Are genetically-laid memories fluid, and can we revisit, alter, and transform them? If so, will this affect ideas past, present and future, held on our own or by those with whom we in-turn interconnect?
Hugely interesting ideas, made all the more compelling by this sensational and multi-layered telling.
Hugest thanks to #Simon&Schuster for an ARC of this exceptional book. All thoughts presented are my own.
