The Phoenix Pencil Company
In WWII Shanghai, women of a certain family can absorb messages from the pencils that wrote them. They stab the pencils into their wrists and pour out life energy with the liquified pencil hearts. The Japanese invaders force the women to spy; after the war, so do the Communists and the Nationalists dueling for China’s soul. Yun and her adored cousin Meng lock down for years in the pencil production company, co-writing a fantasy story to stay human.
Yun finds a way out, to California, still indentured. Political complications, cowardice, and shame keep her from helping Meng. The historical background is sketched too lightly. Still, Yun’s section is fascinating.
Yun’s story alternates with a modern-day timeline set in Massachusetts and told by Monica, who leaves MIT to care for her ailing grandparents. Monica wants to know Yun’s truth before Yun loses her memory. But does she have the right?
Parallels link the two plots: Monica loves Louise, their relationship on slow burn. Both women are enthralled by the power of story but learn the hard way that stories can be deformed, stolen and misused, whether by old magic or modern tech. Monica is engaging and self-aware, but her story sometimes feels like a way to evade the searing emotions and self-revelations Yun experienced. Monica strongarms her grandmother into finally telling her story. I know you and I told ourselves different versions of the same truth, Yun tells Meng. But Meng’s story is also missing.
Particularly apt for our moment in history, this is a book that needs to be read and re-read. A book about family love, romantic love, love of country, and all the forms of betrayal that go with them.
