Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu
Publication date: March 15, 2022
Genres: Book Clubs, Debut, Fiction, Historical
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I’ve done my fair share of fictional reading about World War II. What I’ve never heard much about is Chinese history at the time. Peach Blossom Spring goes some way towards rectifying that as it spans one family’s journey from mainland China in the mid-20th century all the way up to America in 2015. In that time, much changes including the shape and meaning of family and country.
When Peach Blossom Spring opens in 1938, the Daos are a multigenerational family living in the Hunan Province of China. Two sons are off fighting the Japanese, leaving their father, their wives, and children behind. Years later only the oldest son, Longwei returns. The younger is missing, leaving his wife Meilin and their son Renshu alone and without answers. Further victories by the Japanese in eastern China force the family to flee west.
The unceasing violence, first from the Japanese and then from the Communists, pushes Longwei, his family, Meilin, and Renshu further west into Shanghai, but even that falls. As they’re forced onward, the family fractures into smaller and smaller pieces. By 1948 only Meilin and Renchu are precariously settled in Taiwan. They carry Peach Blossom Spring forward, from China to America where Renshu is ultimately accepted into an American university as an engineer and changes his name to Henry.
In America, Henry experiences professional success, marries, and has a daughter, but is never able to shake his fears of the past and the long reach of the Chinese government. In college, fellow Chinese have scholarships revoked or are stripped of their passports when returning home; all for possibly expressing inflammatory political views. This fear, curls Henry into himself and as the years pass he has only limited phone call with Meilin and shares none of his family history with his American wife and daughter. This creates a cold war of its own for his biracial daughter, who struggles to fit in with her Asian features, but American background.
Author Melissa Fu covers many of the traumas experienced by Chinese citizens in the decade before and after WWII. It’s hard to fathom being on the run, with few belongings, and no money for that long. All while being subjected to bombings and military campaigns. This part of Peach Blossom Spring is compelling, but as time and distance are put between Renshu and Henry, the novel loses some of its power. Henry’s fear might be understandable, but that crux of it is not explored or explained. It felt watered down. I felt the same way about several of the novel’s characters. Fu sketches them, but never fills them in with color. This is a good novel of an important time in Chinese history, but I would have preferred staying with the Chinese characters, like Meilin to read their perspective.
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*I received a free copy of this book from Little, Brown & Company in exchange for an honest review.*
Here’s a part of history and the world that I’m rather ignorant about. I’ve got this on my TBR.
I’m glad you reviewed this one — since the Chinese history it covers interests me … although the story seems to fall short in your assessment. too bad.
I wanted more from the Chinese characters. I understand how growing up in that time period could make you paranoid, but it didn’t quite add up.