Dreams of Joy

Janet Song's voice reflects the tone of sorrow in See's emotional sequel to SHANGHAI GIRLS. The story begins as Joy, the daughter of a once-popular poster model, flees her Los Angeles home. She feels responsible for her stepfather's death and was shocked to learn that the woman she believed was her aunt is really her birth mother. Now she seeks her father, an artist whom she's never met, by returning to her ancestral home in Chairman Mao's People's Republic of China. Song depicts Joy's short-lived infatuation with communism and her subsequent discovery of deprivations and illusions. Song also delivers the poignancy of the novel's subplot as Joy's mother follows her daughter to China to ease difficulties and persuade her to return home. S.W. (c) AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

Starred review from April 4, 2011
See revisits Shanghai Girls sisters Pearl and May in this surefire story of life in Communist China. Joy, the daughter Pearl has raised as her own in L.A., learns the truth about her parentage and flees to China to seek out her father and throw herself into the Communist cause, giving See ample opportunity to explore the People's Republic from an unlikely perspective as Joy reconnects with her artist father, Z.G. Li, and the two leave sophisticated Shanghai to go to the countryside, where Z.G., whose ironic view of politics is lost on naïve Joy, has been sent to teach art to the peasants. Joy, full of political vigor, is slow to pick up on the harsh realities of communal life in late 1950s China, but the truth sinks in as Mao's drive to turn China into a major agriculture and manufacturing power backfires. Pearl, meanwhile, leaves L.A. on a perhaps perilous quest to find Joy. As always, See creates an immersive atmosphereâher rural China is far from postcard prettyâbut Joy's education is a stellar example of finding new life in a familiar setup, and See's many readers will be pleased to see the continued development of Pearl and May's relationship. Looks like another hit.