Lisa See

The Lisa See event last night was excellent. It’s wonderful to hear her speak about her books and the research that goes into them, and her family.

I tried to scribble down notes to share with all of you, and sort of succeeded. I definitely don’t have anywhere close to everything that she spoke about, nor are my notes nearly as eloquent as her storytelling was. Here are my notes, and apologies that they are sort of a hodge-podge.

When she began to think about writing this book, she knew she was interested in writing about three things:
1. Her Great-Grandfather brought a lot of “paper” merchants into the country, and his wife was a paper wife.
2. After the second major fire in China City, only one building remained intact. Her family moved their store into this building, and she spent a lot of time there as a child.
3. The confession program in the late 1950s that targeted the Chinese in America. People were asked to confess that they were here illegally, and by doing so were promised citizenship. The catch was that you were expected to rat out your neighbors and even your family members. You hit the jackpot if you could identify someone else as being a “communist.” This program destroyed communities and families.

-Many people who lived through the Confession Program don’t like to talk about it (understandably). However, some people were willing to talk about it, and Lisa See heard many of their stories. One man who now lives in Washington DC had a family – 5 kids (all born in the US) and his wife. He confessed to try to gain citizenship for his family, but his wife was deported. They fought in court for 8 years before they won. Another example was a man now in his 80s – he and his brother went together to confess to get their citizenship. 52 years later – they have never told their children or their grandchildren that they came here illegally before eventually confessing for their citizenship. The reason? They feel that since they aren’t dead yet, it’s still not safe for them to tell.

-The deepest part of Shanghai Girls is about the sense of loss that we feel for people we no longer have in our lives. People who are gone, who we’ve lost; places that we can never go back to and wouldn’t recognize even if we could.

-She and Amy Tan recently went to China together to do some research in some of the smaller villages. They lived in the same house and traveled together. In a few years when the books that each of them were researching come out it will be interesting to see what the books are like and how they each used the same experience in different ways.

And – perhaps the most important thing I learned last night (and important to others who have already read Shanghai Girls) – her next book is in fact a sequel.

Shanghai Girls – Signed by Lisa See

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Shanghai Girls: A Novel

Lisa See

Last year I read Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, and then ran right out to get Peony in Love when I was finished. Since then I’ve been eagerly waiting for her latest book, Shanghai Girls, and was very happy to have an advance copy to read and review over the holiday weekend.

Shanghai Girls is another engaging and fascinating novel from Lisa See. I love how much I learn about Chinese culture and history when I read Lisa See’s novels.

This novel is set just before, during, and after WWII, and takes us on a journey with two sisters from Shanghai as they are forced to leave their country and everything they’ve ever known and start a new life in the United States. (You can read a longer description of the plot, from the jacket copy, here.)

I loved the time period this was set in, and it was interesting to compare what I learned about 17th & 19th century Chinese culture in Snow Flower and Peony in Love with Chinese culture & traditions in the 1940s. Arranged marriages and foot-binding may have been (mostly) outdated, but their rich traditions and culture still thrive.

This is the perfect summer read – a page turner that you wont be able to put down, with the wonderful bonus of being very educational as well. You’ll most likely learn a lot about what life was like for a Chinese-American family during the war and the subsequent Red Scare.

If you’d like a sample, you can read the first chapter on Lisa’s website. There’s also a Q&A with Lisa See posted on her site.

I’m seeing Lisa See tomorrow night at her event at the Barnes and Noble on the UWS. Very excited!

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It was unlike anything else I’ve ever read. By the end, my heart ached for Peony and felt her joy at finally reaching the end of her emotional journey. I don’t know what else to say because I don’t want to spoil any of the plot. It’s more fun going into it without expectations.

I highly recommend Peony in Love, but also recommend reading Snow Flower and the Secret Fan first. Peony is not a sequel to Snow Flower, more of a companion. But I can’t imagine reading it without the background of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.

“All women on earth — and men too, for that matter — hope for the kind of love that transforms us, raises us up out of the everyday, and gives us the courage to survive our little deaths: the heartache of unfulfilled dreams, of career and personal disappointments, of broken love affairs.”
-From Lisa See’s Author Note in Peony in Love

EDIT: Warning – spoilers abound in the comments

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