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"Shanghai Girls' by
Lisa See; Random House ($25)
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If you're looking for one
of those wonderful "take me someplace exotic and
unfamiliar" books for summer, you won't do better
than "Shanghai Girls," the latest from
novelist Lisa See, who has carved a rich career
chronicling the lives of Chinese women.
In "Shanghai
Girls," she takes readers on a lively journey, both
tragic and hopeful, from the Shanghai of the 1930s to
Los Angeles' Chinatown in the mid-20th century. She
renders both settings with loving, precise strokes that
create a world her narrator, Pearl Chin, and her sister
May fully inhabit along with the reader.
As the novel begins in
1937, the teenage sisters are living a privileged, happy
life in Shanghai. They play at working as
"beautiful girls," modeling for advertisements
and magazine covers. Pearl is the more studious and
quiet; May's the party girl who's prettier and more
vivacious.
They know nothing of how
their family acquired its wealth. "Everyone agrees
— even in families — that it's better not to inquire
about the past, because everyone in Shanghai has come
here to get away from something or has something to
hide," See writes.
And there are casual, if
horrific, hints that the Shanghai they adore has a much
darker aspect, a side Pearl and May deliberately
overlook or notice merely in passing. As they exit a
rickshaw, See writes, "We pay him, cross the
street, step around a dead baby on the sidewalk, find
another rickshaw puller." Just another journey
through Shanghai.
The girls' willful
oblivion comes to an abrupt end through two events:
their father's decision to settle his gambling debts by
selling them into marriage to two Chinese-American
brothers and the subsequent invasion of Shanghai by the
Japanese.
The two husbands have
returned to America to await their brides. Before they
can go, though, Mr. Chin disappears, leaving the sisters
and their mother to flee Shanghai alone. Once in Los
Angeles, the girls endure months at the U.S. Immigration
center at Angel Island (the West Coast's version of
Ellis Island) before they're cleared to enter America.
Once in, they build lives around their new in-laws' many
businesses in Chinatown.
See masterfully weaves
the intimate story of these sisters and their extended
family with the larger tales of Chinese immigrants
struggling to get along in an unfamiliar, often hostile
new land. The subtle rivalry between Pearl and May grows
when May gets involved with the burgeoning movie
business, taking along Joy, Pearl's daughter.
It all comes to a head in
a climax that seems to come a bit late but will give
readers plenty of hope for a sequel. It feels as though
See had 10 more chapters or so in her head and just
couldn't fit them in. Readers will be clamoring for the
conclusion to the Chin sisters' tale, so let's hope See
is already writing it.
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