★ 02/21/2022
Zhang delves into the history of violence and prejudice against Chinese people in the U.S. with her debut, a lyrical and sweeping Bildungsroman. The narrator, Daiyu, is inspired by the tragic character at the center of Cao Xueqin’s 18th-century novel Dream of the Red Chamber, whose irascible trickster ghost inhabits Daiyu. In the 1880s, Daiyu’s mother and father suddenly disappear from their home in China. Daiyu finds refuge in a calligraphy school, disguised as a boy, but is nevertheless smuggled to a brothel in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Narrowly escaping, thanks to the ghost’s fearlessness, she reaches the mining town of Pierce, Idaho, and is hired by Nam and Lum, the Chinese owners of a general store. After a violent white mob threatens them, handsome violin teacher Nelson Wong stands with them and helps rescue a wounded Nam, and Daiyu secretly falls in love with him. Her story of self-discovery is interrupted after the white proprietor of a competing store is found murdered and Daiyu and the others are arrested, then abducted by vigilantes. The author skillfully delineates the many characters and offers fascinating details on Chinese calligraphy and literature, along with an unsparing view of white supremacy. The result is fierce and moving. Agent: Stephanie Delman, Trellis Literary. (Apr.)
Jenny Tinghui Zhang uses her considerable talents to illuminate the shocking injustices the Chinese in this country suffered in the 1800s, and in doing so, makes us stop and consider how much of that cruelty and injustice survive to this day. Four Treasures of the Sky is an engulfing, bighearted, and heartbreaking novel.”
—Ann Patchett, author of The Dutch House
“An astonishing novel propelled by private and public histories, rich with reflections on self-making, moral calling, great love, and profound injustice. Jenny Tinghui Zhang's writing enthralled me—it is as honed as a needle and as gorgeous as calligraphy.”
—Megha Majumdar, author of A Burning
“An exhilarating rush of character, history, and storytelling. This novel of the American West illuminates the horrific realities of the Chinese Exclusion act of the 1880s. With unforgettable characters, resiliency, and poetic lyricism, Jenny Tinghui Zhang takes her readers on an unforgettable adventure. This carefully researched novel dazzles.”
—Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Sabrina & Corina
“Brilliant and devastating, Four Treasures of the Sky tells the story of Daiyu, who is brought to America against her will and forced to hide who she is even as she grows into her true self. Weaving together myth and history, Zhang’s work is both timeless and utterly necessary right now.”
—Anna North, author of Outlawed
“In a sweeping adventure that spans China and the American West, Jenny Tinghui Zhang has crafted a thoughtful story of identity, love, and belonging.”
—C Pam Zhang, author of How Much of These Hills Is Gold
“A revelation and a haunting, Four Treasures of the Sky is an instant and necessary classic, easily among the best novels of this decade. Jenny Tinghui Zhang is a sorcerer of words, weaving adventure, a fully realized history, and a story that lingers long after its final images. A true wonder.”
—T Kira Madden, author of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls
“Jenny Tinghui Zhang captures the adventure, the isolation, the violence, and the glittering hope of the American West. The author's fine attention to historical and human detail has allowed her to bring alive a heroine for the ages, an indomitable teenage girl whose relentless spirit and self-reinvention carries this story. Daiyu is sure to take her place in the canon of great Western heroines next to True Grit's Mattie Ross.”
—Juliet Grames, author of The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna
“To say Four Treasures of the Sky is unflinching doesn’t do justice to the miraculous way in which Jenny Tinghui Zhang paints a neglected chapter in American history with sharp and devastating brushstrokes. This book is haunting, luscious, and precise—it’s historical fiction as we most want and need it to be.”
—Julia Fine, author of The Upstairs House and What Should Be Wild
★ 04/01/2022
DEBUT After seeing a road marker in Pierce, ID, stating "Chinese Hanging," Zhang put an extraordinary amount of research into this historical novel with a touch of magical realism. The 1880s Chinese Exclusion Act permitted such barbaric behavior. In China, Daiyu had a happy childhood until her parents disappeared. Then she's kidnapped and transported to a brutal San Francisco brothel. After escaping, she moves to Boise, ID, where she calls herself Jacob Li (for protection against the violent American men she encounters). Eventually, she meets two elderly Chinese men in Pierce who give her work in their store and a home. One day, she and the store owners are threatened and abused by a white shopkeeper. Things take a tragic turn when Daiyu, the old men, and another Chinese friend are falsely accused of murdering their "rival." The sham trial adds to the horror and indignity they face as their lives are deemed expendable. In the epilogue, Zhang reveals that she finished the first draft of the book when COVID struck, when then-president Trump called it "The Chinese Virus." This emboldened her to remind people of what the United States did—and is still capable of. VERDICT Those who want to learn about a little-known incident in Chinese-American history will be enlightened by this moving debut.—Susan G. Baird
2022-02-09
After she’s kidnapped and smuggled to California, a young Chinese woman tries to survive in late-19th-century America.
As a child, Daiyu doesn’t have much to worry about: Her life in a small village is quiet, full of her grandmother’s beautiful garden and the rich tapestries her parents weave. Soon enough, though, things get complicated: Her parents suddenly disappear, and when Daiyu and her grandmother find out they've been arrested, Daiyu is forced to leave home. Though she briefly scrounges a living in nearby Zhifu, working for a calligraphy master she reveres, she’s soon kidnapped herself, imprisoned, and finally shipped off to America, where she’s expected to work in a brothel. Daiyu’s journey ultimately takes her to the small town of Pierce, Idaho, where she masquerades as a young man and works as a shop assistant. There, she both falls in love and is confronted with the ugly reality of rising anti-Chinese violence, which puts her safety and that of her friends at risk. Debut novelist Zhang has thoroughly researched this period; certain details, like Daiyu’s making her Pacific crossing in a coal bucket, startle and linger. Yet the relentlessly hopeful tone of much of the novel can feel discordant given the often grim realities of this historical period, which are gestured at here but not explored fully: Zhang’s depiction of sex work is superficial, and despite Daiyu’s long-term cross-dressing, the novel is disappointingly uninterested in queerness. It often feels designed more for teenagers than adult readers—Zhang’s expository explanation of the Chinese Exclusion Act is particularly leaden—and so its thoroughly bleak ending, partly inspired by a real historical massacre, comes as a jarring surprise. There’s nothing wrong with darkness—this novel could have used more—but its mix of tones feels out of whack.
A well-intentioned but frustrating debut that never comes together.
★ 06/01/2022
Narrator Katharine Chin's outstanding performance will have listeners weeping as they hear Zhang's debut novel, based on actual events. When her parents are arrested and imprisoned in China, Daiyu is turned out on the street and passes as a boy to get by. When discovered, she is kidnapped and trafficked to the United States, where she experiences many instances of the injustice heaped upon Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans in the American West of the 1880s. Chin's youthful voice is well cast in this production; her Chinese pronunciations appear authentic, and her earnestness when narrating Daiyu's perspective rings true. She makes excellent use of pacing and maintains strong emotions throughout. Particularly memorable are Daiyu's anger at a fishmonger, outrage at unfair working conditions, fear that her secret will be discovered, and disappointment when she sees a man whom she has feelings for kiss another woman. VERDICT Fans of Amy Tan will appreciate Zhang's dive into a little-told history of immigrants and Chinese Americans in the American West after the passage of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.—Stephanie Bange
Katharine Chin’s narration expresses the lyricism and emotions of this historical novel, which takes listeners into the late-nineteenth-century world of Daiyu, who is kidnapped from China. She reinvents herself again and again amid the prejudice of the U.S.’s 1882 Exclusion Act. Chin embraces the balance of adventure and sensitivity, as well as the layered persona of Daiyu. Chin also conveys the intelligence, creativity, and strength of the heroine as she makes calligraphy her own, escapes a San Francisco brothel, and falls into the hands of white mobsters in a small Idaho town. In neutral tones, the author delivers an afterword and participates in an interview that recounts her own journey and the truths behind the story. S.W. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine