A home at the end of the world.

The Distant Land of My Father
Bo Caldwell

"My father was a millionaire in Shanghai in the 1930s,"says Anna Schoene, the central character of The Distant Land of My Father, to open this book, and it was like the literary equivalent of a fishhook with a big juicy piece of rock candy (surefire Connie bait) on it, for me. There is just something about that one sentence that made me want to devour this book. Millionaires, who doesn't like them? The 1930s--that's my decade. And Shanghai--I didn't know anything about Shanghai before I read this book, but just the word was enough to pull me in. There is something so smoky and suggestive about the idea Shanghai in the 1930s. And on top of that: Anna's use of the passive voice, my father was a millionaire. Implying that he isn't anymore.

Anna is five when the story begins, the China-born daughter of American parents. Her mother, Genevieve, is a beautiful, passive woman who wears mauve silk and smells like Chanel No. 5; her father, Joseph, is the son of American missionaries who grew up to be a success in business. The family occupies a mansion in the international district of Shanghai, in 1937, and they have cooks and servants and state-of-the-art cars and every imaginable luxury. But that is fated to change, as the Japanese declare war on China and swoop down on Shanghai. Within a few months, the Schoene's lives are changed for ever, and they city that Joseph and Anna love doesn't belong to them anymore.

Genevieve, who has never felt at home in Shanghai, takes their newfound danger as an opportunity to return to Los Angeles with her daughter. But as they are about to flee, Joseph makes a declaration of his own. He isn't leaving. He can't leave. Anna and her mother go to America and Joseph stays behind, and soon imprisoned by the Japanese. And so begins a decades-long estrangement among the members of this family, and a slow, inevitable parting of ways between a loving father and daughter.

This was a painful book to read, at times. I identified with Anna so much that her father's abandonment felt like it was happening to me, too. But there's a reason why Joseph Schoene is a success in business, and the pull of his charm meant I couldn't hate him, and so the hardships he faces were difficult to read. And it's incredibly hard to watch Anna grow up, and grow away from this land she wept to leave, the only home she'd ever known. The child Anna embraces her Chinese cook and calls him yeh-yeh--Grandfather--but the teenaged Anna is embarassed to tell her Californian friends about her past. It's a realistic way for this character to evolve, but it doesn't make it easy, that it would have happened that way.

But even with all of this emotional turmoil, and the bloody violence, and the cruelty, I couldn't stop reading this book. It's tinged with opium or something, seductive and irresistable. Caldwell writes realistically of a time in a major world power's history that is largely ignored (I might have heard of the Sino-Japanese War, maybe, but I definitely didn't know there were two, or how bloody they were.) I've read the requisite Amy Tan, and I'm stalled halfway through Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, but I've noticed that many Americans (maybe just me) have a hard time relating to Chinese culture (quiet, subtle) because it is so different from the one we know (brash, exuberant). But by presenting us with Shanghai through the view of other Americans, Caldwell allows us to embrace it in a way that is natural, and accessible.

If I have one quibble with this book it's that it goes on a bit too long: not that the book itself is too long--Caldwell's prose is honed so finely I wouldn't have minded more of it--but that the story doesn't stop at its natural end. It takes us too far into the future. It is sometimes too full of little details that seem to have no relevance to the plot, but serve as padding. I've heard that lately the trend with publishers, in this bad economy, is to put out books that are longer than usual, because a consumer will feel more compelled to buy if they think they're getting their money's worth. It makes me sad that someone might have said to Caldwell, "we need a little more," and so she extended things when they didn't need to be.

But overall, I highly recommend this book. I read it in time for the Thanksgiving holiday and when I went out of town, I left it with a friend, also going home for the holiday, who has something of a tumultuous relationship with a parent. "What's it about?" the friend asked me. "Family," I said. "And forgiveness."

"Sounds good to me," said my friend, "Just what I'm wanting right now."

That kind of feeling isn't limited to the holidays but it sure helps. Read this book in time for Christmas, and see if it helps, when your mother tells you it looks like you've put on a little weight, and for heaven's sake, to sit up straight, while you're eating your goose.

Rating: 5 of 5 stars.