LISA SEE : DREAMS OF JOY : A FANTASTIC PART TWO OF THE SHANGHAI GIRLS STORY : CHRISTINE TRZYNA BOOK REVIEW

Dreams of Joy is C 2011 Lisa See

LISA SEE : DREAMS OF JOY : A FANTASTIC PART TWO OF THE SHANGHAI GIRLS STORY : CHRISTINE TRZYNA BOOK REVIEW

This book is a fascinating page turner rich with historical details, cultural and generational conflict.

The story begins where Shanghai Girls left off. It's 1958, Mao is in power, and China is Red with Communism. Joy, the young daughter of two sisters, May and Pearl, has just found out that her aunt is her mother and that her father was a somewhat famous artist in China 18 years before who used her aunt and mother as models for his advertising posters.

Thinking herself to be one Chinese-American who wishes to return to the country of her heritage to embrace Communism wholeheartedly and stay there, Joy finds herself living in a village commune and marries the first man who has ever sparked her desire. Life in the country is much different than in the cities, and only by youth can she bear it. The communes banish western thought and individuality and starve doing so. Can May, the sister who raised Joy with her husband, who recently commit suicide and left her a young widow, make it to Communist China from Canton or Hong Kong and live there long enough to find Joy and bring her home?

You know she will, but not until years of struggle.

There will likely be another book to carry this story of the sisters May and Pearl, who came to the United States through arranged marriages, forward into the 1960's.

These women shared a daughter and kept the secret of her parentage until she was 18. Now they return to the United States with an entourage that includes Joy's birth father, a new husband, and an adopted son. Now with the sisters who stick together through everything ready to start life over, and some would argue for the first time, tell me, how can there not be more story?

C 2012 Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

From PEONY IN LOVE by LISA SEE

"The Ming dynasty fell in 1644 and the Qing Dynasty, led by the Manchus, began. For about thirty years, the country was in turmoil. Some women were forced from their homes; others went out by choice. Literally thousands of women became published poets and writers. The lovesick maidens were part of this phenomenon. The works of more than twenty of them have survived today.

"I have followed the traditional Chinese style for rendering dates. Emperor Kangxi reigned from 1662-1722. Tang Xianzu's opera The Peony Pavilion was first produced and then published in 1598. Chen Tong (Peony in this novel) was born ca.1649. Tan Ze Ca 1656, and Quian Yi ca 1671. In 1694, The Three Wives Commentary became the first book of it's kind to be written and published by women anywhere in the world."

Lisa See C 2007
Random House Publisher

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