A review by cycholibrarian
Brothers by Da Chen

5.0

I have been fascinated for a very long time by Asia generally and China specifically. I’ve done a lot of reading about Chinese history, especially Chinese history from the end of the empire to today. Oddly enough, I have learned more about the Chinese people and culture from reading novels by Chinese authors than I have from any work of non-fiction. This book fits into this trend perfectly. Brothers tells the story of two half-brothers, fathered by the favorite son of two of the most powerful families in Maoist China. Each brother has the intelligence and the drive to become great and do great things. However, over the course of the Vietnam war, the Cultural Revolution, the death of Mao, and the opening of communist China to the west, the brother who seemed to be the favorite son finds himself brought low, while the bastard son is elevated to the highest levels. Not only does this story illustrate so much of what is wrong with China and so much of what could be right, it also shows how people with the best motives can find themselves in a position of doing horrible things.