23 Jul / Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
Since Lisa See‘s latest has been sitting high on all the best bestseller lists for many weeks, presumably many have already read the story of two sisters and their odyssey from China to LA’s Chinatown. I probably should have done the same – read the book as opposed to having listened to most of it on my various peripatetic jaunts. Somehow – intonation? misplaced emphasis? overdramatic wording? – the book’s reader, Janet Song, makes older sister Pearl, through whose perspective the novel unfolds, about as self-absorbed and self-pitying as a whiny adolescent yelling ‘but that’s not fair, that’s not fair!’ every five seconds.
That gripe aside, I didn’t ever give up and click to another track. As I wandered far too many airports, I eagerly followed Pearl and May’s glittering Shanghai life as much-painted models, their heart-wrenching family tragedies, their survival of and eventual escape from the tortuous Japanese occupation of their shattered country, their immigration ordeal through Angel Island to join stranger-Gold Mountain husbands, and their eventual acceptance of their seemingly diminished new lives on the outskirts of Haolaiwu [Hollywood].
As bonded as they are, the two sisters are extremely different … and resentful of one another’s lives. Pearl, the practical, smarter one, feels trapped with the responsibility that she must take care of her younger sister at all costs. May, the exquisite, fun-loving one that everyone seems to prefer, sees her older sister receiving all the praise, the opportunities, life’s lucky breaks. Still, sisterhood remains an impossible bond to break, regardless of indescribable betrayals …
Readers: Adult
Published: 2009