Daughters of Shandong
-
-
4.8 • 6 Ratings
-
-
- $14.99
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
An Instant USA Today Bestseller, a Good Morning America Buzz Pick, and a People Book of the Week!
“Throw open the doors of your heart for the lionhearted girls of Chung’s gripping debut…they are heroines for the ages."
—People
A propulsive, extraordinary novel about a mother and her daughters’ harrowing escape to Taiwan as the Communist revolution sweeps through China, by debut author Eve J. Chung, based on her family story
Daughters are the Ang family’s curse.
In 1948, civil war ravages the Chinese countryside, but in rural Shandong, the wealthy, landowning Angs are more concerned with their lack of an heir. Hai is the eldest of four girls and spends her days looking after her sisters. Headstrong Di, who is just a year younger, learns to hide in plain sight, and their mother—abused by the family for failing to birth a boy—finds her own small acts of rebellion in the kitchen. As the Communist army closes in on their town, the rest of the prosperous household flees, leaving behind the girls and their mother because they view them as useless mouths to feed.
Without an Ang male to punish, the land-seizing cadres choose Hai, as the eldest child, to stand trial for her family’s crimes. She barely survives their brutality. Realizing the worst is yet to come, the women plan their escape. Starving and penniless but resourceful, they forge travel permits and embark on a thousand-mile journey to confront the family that abandoned them.
From the countryside to the bustling city of Qingdao, and onward to British Hong Kong and eventually Taiwan, they witness the changing tide of a nation and the plight of multitudes caught in the wake of revolution. But with the loss of their home and the life they’ve known also comes new freedom—to take hold of their fate, to shake free of the bonds of their gender, and to claim their own story.
Told in assured, evocative prose, with impeccably drawn characters, Daughters of Shandong is a hopeful, powerful story about the resilience of women in war; the enduring love between mothers, daughters, and sisters; and the sacrifices made to lift up future generations.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Chung chronicles in her stirring debut the trials and tribulations of a family's abandoned women during the Chinese Revolution. It's 1948 and the wealthy Ang family is upset that their daughter-in-law, Chiang-Yue, still hasn't borne a male heir after having three daughters. As the Nationalist Party retreats from the communists, imperiling the Angs, Chiang-Yue's husband forsakes her and the children and flees from their home in the rural Shandong province with his extended family. Alone, Chiang-Yue and the girls face the wrath of a communist mob. Hai, the oldest at 13, is spat on and tortured. They survive, however, thanks to help from workers who reciprocate Chiang-Yue's past kindness. Driven from their home, the four trek to the city of Qingdao to find the Angs, though Hai's headstrong middle sister Di never wants to see their father again. The women eventually earn he's in the Nationalist stronghold of Taiwan. Through it all, Hai vows to become self-sufficient so she can escape the sexist traditional beliefs that have made their lives so hard. Chung portrays the characters' stark circumstances in lyrical prose ("Interpreting Di was like looking at ripples in the water and trying to see an image"). Readers will be moved by this humanizing account of a turbulent period in China's history.
