Daughters of Shandong

March 11, 2024
Chung chronicles in her stirring debut the trials and tribulations of a family’s abandoned women during the Chinese Revolution. It’s 1948 and the wealthy Ang family is upset that their daughter-in-law, Chiang-Yue, still hasn’t borne a male heir after having three daughters. As the Nationalist Party retreats from the communists, imperiling the Angs, Chiang-Yue’s husband forsakes her and the children and flees from their home in the rural Shandong province with his extended family. Alone, Chiang-Yue and the girls face the wrath of a communist mob. Hai, the oldest at 13, is spat on and tortured. They survive, however, thanks to help from workers who reciprocate Chiang-Yue’s past kindness. Driven from their home, the four trek to the city of Qingdao to find the Angs, though Hai’s headstrong middle sister Di never wants to see their father again. The women eventually earn he’s in the Nationalist stronghold of Taiwan. Through it all, Hai vows to become self-sufficient so she can escape the sexist traditional beliefs that have made their lives so hard. Chung portrays the characters’ stark circumstances in lyrical prose (“Interpreting Di was like looking at ripples in the water and trying to see an image”). Readers will be moved by this humanizing account of a turbulent period in China’s history. Agent: Alexa Stark, Writers House.

March 15, 2024
In her first novel, lawyer Chung fictionalizes the life of her paternal grandmother, Li-Hai, unflinchingly detailing the aristocratic Ang family's descent as Mao comes into power, focusing on the deeply internalized misogyny of Chinese culture of the era. While the male Angs retreat to safer ground as the Communists approach Shandong Province, the female Angs (specifically, Li-Hai, her sisters Di and Lan, and their mother) are left behind to fend for themselves. Surviving torture, starvation, and bad health, the Ang women travel from Zhucheng south to Jiaozhou Bay in Qingdao. With each location less safe than the last, the women continue to move, enduring two different refugee camps in Hong Kong before finally arriving in Taiwan. It's only after Li-Hai reunites with her father and his family, then watches her mother--this strong woman who kept her girls alive in the face of unspeakable horror--succumb to patriarchal expectations, that Li-Hai realizes she must break the chains for the next generation. Chung's debut combines historical insight with sympathetic characters and will be appreciated by readers seeking stories with strong female characters or twentieth-century history lessons.

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July 26, 2024

DEBUT In her debut novel, Taiwanese American human rights lawyer Chung draws from her own family history and experience as a global advocate for women's rights to tell a riveting story of a young girl desperately seeking safety as a refugee during the Chinese Civil War. When Communist troops approach the city where Hai and her landowning family live, her grandmother and father leave Hai behind, along with her mother and sisters, to defend their home. After a violent encounter with the Communists leaves the family homeless and destitute, Hai's mother takes her daughters on an exhausting and perilous journey to find shelter in Taiwan. Hai's shifting relationship with her strong-willed younger sister Di and her friendships with other refugees add additional interest to this gripping family-centered survival story that should strongly appeal to those who have enjoyed novels such as Vanessa Chan's The Storm We Made or Juhea Kim's Beasts of a Little Land. VERDICT This wartime story of perseverance and hardship is engaging from beginning to end, and Chung sensitively but vividly captures the complexities of the mother-daughter bond in a culture that places its highest value on men.--Mara Bandy Fass

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