14 Feb / The Undertaking of Lily Chen by Danica Novgorodoff
Before Danica Novgorodoff’s story even begins, her dedication page offers crucial tidbits: in paying homage to her grandparents, she reveals both her Chinese heritage and inspiration [“To my grandparents, Eugene and Ellen Chen Novgorodoff”]; in quoting a July 2007 article from The Economist (we’re talking pretty much now!), she prepares readers with an introduction to “a burgeoning market for female corpses, the result of the reappearance of a strange custom called ‘ghost marriages,'” in which parents of unmarried dead sons hold posthumous ‘weddings’ to prevent their progeny entering the next world alone. [Might I suggest Yangsze Choo’s The Ghost Bride as a most ingenious companion text?]
Wei Li, the favored older son of the Li family, is dead. Accident though it was, his younger brother Deshi remains responsible. Following a tradition that possibly began in 208 AD when a powerful warlord demanded “the body of a woman” to “lie with [his dead young son] in the dark eternal bedroom,” the Li brothers’ parents give Deshi a bag of cash, a beast of burden, and demand he return in exactly a week with a wife for Wei.
Following advice from a dwarfish matchmaker who sends him to skeezy Mr. Song, Deshi searches for a suitable spouse, even if that means digging six feet under. When a love match doesn’t turn up, Deshi goes in search of a fresher candidate. He meets Lily, the obstinate, feisty daughter of a remote villager mired in financial woes; Lily impulsively steals Deshi’s ride forcing him to give chase. Their unexpected journey together begins – Deshi trying to get to that wedding on time with the perfect guest, Lily intending to escape her provincial life for a new beginning in the big city. Sunday’s deadline (couldn’t resist) looms … and somehow Deshi must fulfill his filial duties, even if that means, uh … dying for love.
Corpses and ghosts aside – not to mention that not-so-subtle skull on the book’s cover – Undertaking is quite the heartstrings-pulling story for this Valentine’s Day. No, really! Novgorodoff’s original narrative and her can’t-turn-away-from-the-action-packed-art definitely trump chocolate and flowers any day.
Readers: Young Adult, Adult
Published: 2014