Henry and his mother, their relationship frayed by distance and politics, reflect the concerns of generations of people forced by war to maintain family ties across continents. His failure to fit in and his daughter’s brushes with racism provoke important questions about how America treats immigrants. He is haunted by childhood traumas that he cannot or will not share and never overcomes his sense that he and Meilin are under threat from Communist surveillance.
Despite having been educated and living the bulk of his life in America, Henry is tenuous in his work and family life. In the second part of the book, Renshu transforms to Henry Dao as he immigrates to America and raises a daughter. The author effectively transmits the chaos and dislocation of war, from losses that will never heal to chance encounters that save lives. The novel does a good job examining her ongoing relationship with Longwei, which grows increasingly complex over the course of the story. She emerges as a hero, resourceful and clever, personable enough to make friends, smart enough to recognize danger, and capable of making a home, no matter the scarcity. Meilin is written with tremendous appeal. The first part of the book depicts Meilin’s harrowing struggle to protect and care for her young son while fleeing war, ultimately making a narrow escape to Taiwan. When Longwei returns to Hunan Province in 1938 after fighting the Japanese, he reports that his younger brother, Xiaowen, husband to Meilin and father to Renshu, has been killed in action, spurring the events in this multigenerational novel.
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