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St. Martin's Press
August 2012
On Sale: August 7, 2012
304 pages ISBN: 0312274815 EAN: 9780312274818 Kindle: B00779MS3O Hardcover / e-Book
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Fiction
A powerful new novel about an ordinary family facing
extraordinary times at the start of the Chinese Cultural
Revolution
China, 1957. Chairman Mao has declared a new openness in
society: “Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools
of thought contend.” Many intellectuals fear it is only a
trick, and Kai Ying’s husband, Sheng, a teacher, has
promised not to jeopardize their safety or that of their
young son, Tao. But one July morning, just before his sixth
birthday, Tao watches helplessly as Sheng is dragged away
for writing a letter criticizing the Communist Party and
sent to a labor camp for “reeducation.” A year later, still missing his father desperately, Tao
climbs to the top of the hundred-year-old kapok tree in
front of their home, wanting to see the mountain peaks in
the distance. But Tao slips and tumbles thirty feet to the
courtyard below, badly breaking his leg.
As Kai Ying struggles to hold her small family together in
the face of this shattering reminder of her husband’s
absence, other members of the household must face their own
guilty secrets and strive to find peace in a world where the
old sense of order is falling. Once again, Tsukiyama brings
us a powerfully moving story of ordinary people facing
extraordinary circumstances with grace and courage.
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