Their Divine Fires
Yunhong grows up poor but happy in the Chinese countryside in the early years of the 20th century. An unexpected encounter with a local landowner’s son leads to love and promises for the future, a future that is interrupted by a violent peasant uprising on the day after Yunhong’s wedding. The trauma from that brutal day reverberate through the generations as her daughter Yuexin, twin granddaughters Yonghong and Hongxing, and great-granddaughter Emily all grapple with familial relationships, lost love, and finding their own identities within an ever-changing China.
This is a tightly-knit story of women—as mothers and daughters, as wives and lovers, and as the keepers of lore and mythology in an increasingly modernizing China. Through four generations of women, we see China’s history, from the Chinese Republic to the People’s Republic of China, from the turmoil of the Chinese Civil War and Japanese occupation to the changes brought about by the Cultural Revolution, from modern China to the politics of present-day America. Each woman narrates a childhood where the family’s tragic history impacts the adult she becomes. My one complaint is that I wish I could have spent longer with each narrator, but this is a credit to the author for rendering such engaging protagonists. A heartfelt family saga.
