 Thanks to partners NetGalley and Algonquin Books for the digital ARC of Wendy Chen’s Their Divine Fires. The book will be published on May 7!
Wendy Chen’s Their Divine Fires comes in at only 256 pages, but that length is deceptive: this is a sprawling, multi-generational tale of three generations of Chinese women that takes the reader from 1917 Liuyang, China to 2009 Massachusetts, United States. Chen’s novel, inspired by the experiences of her own ancestors, begins with the story of a young girl, Zhang Yuexin, living with her family, including her two brothers, in Liuyang. Yuexin is devoted to her oldest brother, so when he cuts his traditional braid, angering her parents, Yuexin cuts her hair, as well. This initial symbolic event sets the stage for unrest: the family is broken when her oldest brother leaves to join the Revolution, setting them on a path that will have unexpected effects on them all. After her brother leaves, Yuexin’s young life is again altered forever when she saves Tan Haiyang, the young son of a local wealthy lord. He stays with the family while Yuexin’s father, a doctor, cares for him. Yuexin and Haiyang form a strong connection, but once he returns home, it seems likely that they’ll never see each other again, driven apart by the distance in their families’ situations. The only hope is that he felt the connection as strongly as Yuexin did. The narrative captures the effects of this Revolution, the ways that its aftermath cycles through the generations, moving through the Cultural Revolution of the 70s to the diaspora who make their way to the United States. Chen’s writing is stunning, and her sense of character is so vivid. Watching the way that early generations appear again later, the ways that ancestors affect their descendants, offers powerful commentary on the cycles of history. Despite the depth and power of its content, Their Divine Fires is a propulsive read, and I can’t recommend it enough.
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 Thanks to partners NetGalley and Graydon House Books for the ARC of A. H. Kim’s Relative Strangers. The book will be out tomorrow!
A. H. Kim’s Relative Strangers is a modern retelling of Sense and Sensibility with some big—fun—twists. The focus in this version is on the Marianne character, Amelia Bae-Wood. She’s the unreliable sister, the one who hasn’t seen her family in ages and has to hitchhike back to her childhood home, just as her mother is being evicted from it. The villain? Their father’s illegitimate son, Chong Bae, who is vying to claim his inheritance in an effort that has embroiled them in a lengthy, painful court case. Amelia arrives only to find that her sister, Eleanor, has already moved their mother to a small home at the cancer center where she volunteers. Amelia is still working through her own—secret—trauma and now has to face the resentment of her sister, who is convinced that Amelia’s lack of responsibility is a sign of her selfishness and her inability to be a stable part of her family. The conflicts here abound. First, there’s the class conflict that is part of Austen’s original novel, fueled by one of Amelia’s past relationships, which put her in the media spotlight, and by a potential love match with a new wealthy suitor. Issues in response to Amelia and Eleanor’s heritage also arise: the sisters are half-Korean (their mother is a white Southern belle, and their father immigrated from Seoul). Much of the novel is about recovering from loss: there’s the death of Amelia’s father, which—along with the loss of her home—has left their mother desolate. They’re also still dealing with the shadow of the death of Eleanor’s first husband, a loss that continues to haunt Eleanor and her daughter Maggie. Of course, there’s plenty of romance, though the center of the novel, for me, is the sibling relationship between Amelia and Eleanor, whose approaches to the world vary greatly. Eleanor feels as if she has to keep a firm grasp on everything, fearful that a loss of control will result in chaos. Amelia, in contrast, has to bring herself back from a tendency to embrace the very chaos that her sister so fears. Despite their tensions, there’s a lovely connection between them, along with some fun touches (they often communicate in movie quotes that are perfect for any situation). And watching Amelia strive to figure out who she wants to be and how she wants to share her story and her hidden struggles is a satisfying journey. I loved seeing both the ways that Kim chose to pay tribute to her source material and the places she chose to break away, to put a new spin on the classic tale. Relative Strangers is the best kind of retelling, one that relies on the strong center of the original but shows the ways that its tale is still all too relevant. |
AuthorI'm Jen Moyers, co-host of the Unabridged Podcast and an English teacher. Archives
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