Publishers Weekly
04/22/2024
The pseudonymous Wen debuts with a piercing coming-of-age novel based on her experiences growing up in China and her involvement in the 1989 student demonstrations against the government. Born in 1970, Lai struggles for acceptance from her parents, who wished for a son. Her father, a cartographer, remains scarred by the “fear and uncertainty” of life under Maoism, while her mother refuses to acknowledge that the leaders of the Cultural Revolution were anything but fair. During high school, an elderly bookseller allows Lai to borrow titles by freethinking writers like Camus, Orwell, and Sartre, and she receives a scholarship to attend Peking University. There, Lai comes into her own, linking up with a subversive theater troupe that will end up playing a key role in the Tiananmen Square standoff. Wen generates suspense and pathos in the buildup to the demonstration, even though its tragic outcome is well-known, and she offers keen psychological insights into how Lei’s fraught relationship with her parents spurred her to seek her own path. Wen brings the past to life in this deeply personal narrative. (June)
From the Publisher
Wraps an emotionally satisfying coming-of-age tale around a riveting account of the months-long student protests and the horrific, fateful night that Chinese troops cracked down with bullets and tanks. . . . The book’s arresting and bloody climax delivers a powerful punch.”—Washington Post
“An exquisite coming-of-age novel . . . moving, enthralling, and universal . . . Wen displays the same patience, precision and calm intelligence as [Elena] Ferrante as she stitches together her tapestry of female relationships, falling in love and coming into political awareness. . . . Her beautifully impassioned book lets you feel how that extraordinary historic moment was made up of thousands upon thousands of ordinary people just like her. It is one of the many achievements of this outstanding work.”—The Sunday Times (UK)
“It is hard not to be carried away by this tale of friendship and self-discovery amid a righteous cause. There’s a useful reminder here that bravery must be individual before it can become collective.”—Wall Street Journal
“A compelling coming-of-age tale . . . [and] a powerful act of remembrance.”—Financial Times
“[A] thoughtful, moving narrative of coming to political consciousness in a time of danger.”—Los Angeles Times, 10 Books to Add to Your Reading List in June
“A beautiful and devastating read . . . One for book clubs to discuss. I can’t stop thinking about it.”—Irish Times
“Captivating . . . An utterly gripping book, and a must for prize shortlists.”—The Spectator (UK)
“Debut author Lai (a necessary pseudonym, given Beijing’s continued hostility to critics of the 1989 crackdown) writes with candor and vulnerability as personal and social anxieties blur into political unrest. In its unabashed affection for twentieth-century classics, this tale also reminds us that literature remains a vital means of resistance to anti-democratic forces.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Poignant and powerful.”—Daily Mail (UK)
“A piercing coming-of-age novel. . . . Wen brings the past to life in this deeply personal narrative.”—Publishers Weekly
“Friendship, family secrets, young love, and loss mingle with political activism in desperate times in Lai Wen’s brilliant Tiananmen Square, a novel that reveals truths about the past, a lens through which to view the present, and a warning shot for the future. Wen carries the weight of this pivotal point in history with astonishing grace and finesse.”—Meg Waite Clayton, New York Times bestselling author of The Postmistress of Paris
“Surprises abound . . . in this pensive tale of life under totalitarian rule. . . . A revealing addition to the literature of the democracy movement in China.”—Kirkus
“An extraordinary book. Truly important. An act of historical testimony all the more trenchant and devastating for being cast as fiction.”—William Boyd, author of Any Human Heart
“A touching story of Tiananmen memory, just like a fireside whisper with love and tears. Lai Wen is a brilliant storyteller.”—Xinran, author of Sky Burial and The Good Women of China
Kirkus Reviews
2024-02-17
Coming-of-age novel meets roman à clef in this pensive tale of life under totalitarian rule.
“In China, you may not be particularly interested in politics. But politics sure has an interest in you.” So writes Wen in a novel so closely intertwined with her life that it’s difficult to separate the fictional from the autobiographical. As a young girl, Lai’s close friend is a bright boy named Gen, who shows her bits of a world that lies behind the curtain of official life: a crematorium, for example, that bears the false title “Beijing Children’s Hospital,” of whose denizens, citing his minor government official father as a source, Gen says, “They will...never get better.” The lie is emblematic of the Politburo’s relationship with the people, something Lai will not learn from her own father, withdrawn after being denounced during the Cultural Revolution, and mother, scornful of anyone who imagines that things will ever change. As Lai grows into young adulthood and enters university, she discovers alcohol, reformist politics, bohemian romance, and much more, all under the disapproving gaze of Gen, who has become a student leader against the backdrop of the Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989. Proclaims Gen, “The university is not a parent or a politician, and still less a dictator. It is our communal home....And every man should have autonomy in his own home.” It’s a daring statement, much braver than Lai can muster until, even more daringly, she helps stage a production of Brecht’s Mother Courage before a phalanx of soldiers poised to break up the demonstrations. Surprises abound in Lai’s narrative about what becomes of her, of Gen, of a flamboyant actress called Madam Macaw, and, in an intriguing turn, of the character known to history as Tank Man.
Read as history as much as fiction, a revealing addition to the literature of the democracy movement in China.
