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stevienlcf 's review for:
Dreams of Joy
by Lisa See
Author Lisa See's latest historical novel provides a vivid and harrowing depiction of China between 1958 and 1961 where 30 to 45 million Chinese died of starvation and disease during Mao's "Great Leap Forward". Taking up where "Shanghai Girls" left off, See's protagonist, 19-year-old Joy, discovers that the woman who raised her, Pearl, is not her mother, but is her aunt, and that Pearl's husband, Sam, who committed suicide after being branded a communist sympathizer, is not her father. Feeling betrayed by her family and fueled by misguided idealism, Joy travels to China to seek her birth father Z.G. Li, a respected artist, and to build the New Society. As she has in her prior novels, See uses rich detail (e.g., descriptions of how menstruating women used leaves, grass or sand upon the arrival of the "little red sister" and how denizens of the commune presented dead flies, mice, rats, and sparrows to their Brigade Leaders to insure adherence to the newly-instituted cleanliness policy)to tell the story of Joy's life at the Dandelion Number Eight People's Commune.
Although the narrative sputters in the opening chapters when See quickly explains the familial relationships (for those who are not familiar with May and Pearl, the heroines in "Shanghai Girls"), and American-born Joy's naivette astounds (giving up her "reactionary" bra upon entering China is one thing, but her passport!), the book picks up steam when Joy unites with Li, and Pearl returns to her family home in Shanghai to be near her estranged daughter. Without losing sight of the family drama, See explains how mismanagement of the farms by urban commune leaders resulted in starvation. While the story is grim, a reader will not forget scenes such as how the crowd turned on a woman with bound feet who could not work the fields, or how families reduced to cannibalism to survive traded their infant children in the "Swap Child, Make Food" campaign.
Although the narrative sputters in the opening chapters when See quickly explains the familial relationships (for those who are not familiar with May and Pearl, the heroines in "Shanghai Girls"), and American-born Joy's naivette astounds (giving up her "reactionary" bra upon entering China is one thing, but her passport!), the book picks up steam when Joy unites with Li, and Pearl returns to her family home in Shanghai to be near her estranged daughter. Without losing sight of the family drama, See explains how mismanagement of the farms by urban commune leaders resulted in starvation. While the story is grim, a reader will not forget scenes such as how the crowd turned on a woman with bound feet who could not work the fields, or how families reduced to cannibalism to survive traded their infant children in the "Swap Child, Make Food" campaign.