BOOKS FROM TAIWANDragon Springs Road : A Novel
by Janie Chang
Tags:
Set in China
Female author
Description:
From the author of Three Souls comes a vividly imagined and haunting new novel set in early 20th century Shanghai—a story of friendship, heartbreak, and history that follows a young Eurasian orphan’s search for her long-lost mother. That night I dreamed that I had wandered out to Dragon Springs Road all on my own, when a dreadful knowledge seized me that my mother had gone away never to return . . . In 1908, Jialing is only seven years old when she is abandoned in the courtyard of a once-lavish estate near Shanghai. Jialing is zazhong—Eurasian—and faces a lifetime of contempt from both Chinese and Europeans. Without her mother’s protection, she can survive only if the estate’s new owners, the Yang family, agree to take her in. Jialing finds allies in Anjuin, the eldest Yang daughter, and Fox, an animal spirit who has lived in the haunted courtyard for centuries. But Jialing’s life as the Yangs’ bondservant changes unexpectedly when she befriends a young English girl who then mysteriously vanishes. Always hopeful of finding her long-lost mother, Jialing grows into womanhood during the tumultuous early years of the Chinese republic, guided by Fox and by her own strength of spirit, away from the shadows of her past. But she finds herself drawn into a murder at the periphery of political intrigue, a relationship that jeopardizes her friendship with Anjuin and a forbidden affair that brings danger to the man she loves.
Reviews:
(4 months ago) |
13 May, 2025
The plot of this book is very Dickensian. You have an orphan making her way through life, she encounters some people who help her, some who are mean and faces class discrimination. Dragon Springs Road does include some magical realism that would probably not be in a Dickens novel, and considerably more sexual references. Having this style is not a bad thing (I happen to love Dickens), but it does set it up for a comparison that Janie Chang cannot hope to win. It is a good book, the story is well told and keeps you turing pages to see what happens next, but I would say read it with good expectations, not great.
|