A Map of Betrayal

Starred review from August 25, 2014
From the National Book Award– and PEN/Faulkner-winning author Jin (Waiting) comes a woman’s inquisition into the limits of her father’s loyalty to his nation and family. The narrative alternates between the present day and the years spanning 1949 to 1989. In the present, American-born Lillian Shang unravels her father Gary’s mysterious life as a U.S.-based Chinese spy feeding information to the Mao administration. She pieces together his evolution from student, to spy, then prisoner—he ultimately ended up being a high-profile mole caught by the CIA. Lillian undertakes her research primarily through Gary’s extensive diaries, bequeathed to Lillian by his longtime mistress. Gary’s story is too messy for journalistic prose alone, so Lillian travels to northeast China to connect with his other family. In doing so, she sees the pervasive duplicity that defined Gary’s life abroad; his family members know little about what’s happened to him since leaving decades before. When Lillian’s husband is embroiled in a dubious microchip scheme with a newly acquainted Chinese cousin, the FBI materializes and Lillian must evaluate whether to respond with familial fidelity or self-preservation. Jin’s subtle prose entrances; he divulges information measuredly, almost reluctantly. The result is a captivating tale that probes the Chinese political state over the past half century.

Starred review from September 1, 2014
A plainspoken, even reticent narrative illuminates the complex loyalties of a Chinese-American spy, who considers himself a patriot of both countries. As a novel of espionage, the latest from the prizewinning author (Waiting, 1999, etc.) satisfies like the best of John le Carre, similarly demystifying and deglamorizing the process of gathering information and the ambiguous morality that operates in shades of gray. But it's plain that this novel is about more than the plight of one spy, who must forsake his Chinese family in order to embed himself as a master translator for the CIA, becoming "China's ear to the heartbeat of the United States." In the process, he starts a second family, which knows nothing about the first, raising a daughter with his Irish-American wife. He also has a mistress, a Chinese-American woman to whom he relates and responds in the way he can't with his American wife and to whom he entrusts his diaries. Thus, the issues of love and loyalty that permeate the novel aren't merely political, but deeply personal. Narrating the novel is Lilian Shang, a scholar and the adult daughter of the late Gary Shang, convicted of treason in America, abandoned by his Chinese handlers, who receives the diaries from his lifelong mistress. Chapters in which Lilian learns about her father's first family in China and attempts to connect with them and bridge their related pasts alternate with chapters from Gary's perspective, in which he leaves his homeland and his family and earns (and betrays?) the trust of his adopted country, one in which the freedom of jazz and the mournful tone of Hank Williams speak to him deeply. "The two countries are like parents to me," he insists at his trial. "They are like mother and father, so as a son I can't separate the two and I love them both." Lilian ultimately discovers that such conflicting loyalties run deep in the bloodlines of her extended family. Subtle, masterful and bittersweet storytelling that operates on a number of different levels.

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Starred review from October 1, 2014
Ha Jin (Nanjing Requiem, 2011) presents a chillingly matter-of-fact tale of espionage and treachery told in alternating narratives. In the present, Lilian Shang, a pragmatic Maryland history professor, knows that her late father, Gary, was the biggest Chinese spy ever caught in North America, but she had no idea how much he suffered until his mistress gives her his diaries. When she travels to China on a Fulbright, she eludes the authorities to meet her newly discovered half-sister and niece, then returns home and encounters her enigmatic nephew. Meanwhile, we see Gary as a college graduate fluent in English, recruited by the Communists in 1949 and sent to Washington, D.C., where he dutifully and anxiously works his way up the ranks at the CIA. Perpetually homesick and tormented by his dangerous double life, he clings to the belief that his drastic sacrifices are benefiting his parents and lovely wife, whom he pines for even as he forms an American family. As Gary's brooding, many-layered story of delusion and betrayal suspensefully unfolds, Ha Jin offers startlingly redefining views of the strategic evolution of U.S.-Chinese relations during the nuclear arms race, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and Ping-Pong diplomacy. A sharply ironic, stealthily devastating tale of the tragic cost of blind patriotism, told by a master of clarifying fiction, that unites the personal and the geopolitical.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

Starred review from September 15, 2014

CIA agent Gary Shang was convicted of spying for China yet called himself "a patriot of both the United States and China." Decades after Gary's death, Lilian, his only child with his American wife, unexpectedly inherits his diary from his longtime mistress and discovers 30 years of his in-between existence. A Fulbright lectureship gives Lilian, now a middle-aged professor, the opportunity to teach a semester in China, where she finds her father's first family, whom he had been forced to abandon. Suddenly, Lilian is a sister and an aunt, which brings new responsibilities, realizations, and rewards. Like his exquisite National Book Award-winning Waiting, Jin's latest is a meticulous observation of a manipulated life only partially lived. Presenting dovetailing narratives that feature Gary's career from 1949 to 1979 and Lilian's contemporary search and subsequent revelations, he deftly plots a family history caught between uncompromising attachments and inevitable betrayals. Spy story it may be, but what lingers is the immeasurable human toll. VERDICT Jin's groupies might startle at the occasional raw language not usually found in the author's pages, but they won't be disappointed. Newbie readers will undoubtedly rejoice to discover Jin's unadorned, chilling Betrayal. [See Prepub Alert, 5/12/14.]--Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2014

After her parents' deaths, Lilian Shang unearths the diary of her Chinese-born father, a CIA agent convicted many years previously of spying for China. Through the diary, Lilian follows her father's difficult journey from 1949 Shanghai to Okinawa to America and learns of yet another duplicity: unknown to her or her Irish American mother, he had another family in China, long since left behind. She also comes to understand that despite his loyalty to China, her father had come to love his adopted country. What price duty? You can expect an elegant answer from this multi-award-winning author.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2014

CIA agent Gary Shang was convicted of spying for China yet called himself "a patriot of both the United States and China." Decades after Gary's death, Lilian, his only child with his American wife, unexpectedly inherits his diary from his longtime mistress and discovers 30 years of his in-between existence. A Fulbright lectureship gives Lilian, now a middle-aged professor, the opportunity to teach a semester in China, where she finds her father's first family, whom he had been forced to abandon. Suddenly, Lilian is a sister and an aunt, which brings new responsibilities, realizations, and rewards. Like his exquisite National Book Award-winning Waiting, Jin's latest is a meticulous observation of a manipulated life only partially lived. Presenting dovetailing narratives that feature Gary's career from 1949 to 1979 and Lilian's contemporary search and subsequent revelations, he deftly plots a family history caught between uncompromising attachments and inevitable betrayals. Spy story it may be, but what lingers is the immeasurable human toll. VERDICT Jin's groupies might startle at the occasional raw language not usually found in the author's pages, but they won't be disappointed. Newbie readers will undoubtedly rejoice to discover Jin's unadorned, chilling Betrayal. [See Prepub Alert, 5/12/14.]--Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon, Washington, DC

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.