From the Publisher
Los Angeles Times bestseller — now in paperback.
A "sensuous and disquieting new novel" [New York Times] from one of China's most acclaimed novelists, the award-winning screenwriter of Joan Chen's film Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl
The Lost Daughter of Happiness is an epic and moving love story of individuals intoxicated with one another and yet repeatedly separated by prejudice and mistrust. The novel chronicles the lives of the main characters over decades against a backdrop of social turmoil — the anti-Chinese hysteria that plagued San Francisco.
Geling Yan was born in Shanghai and began writing in the late 1970s as a journalist covering the Sino-Vietnamese border war. Her first novel was published in China in 1985. In 1989, following the massacre at Tiananmen Square, she left China for the United States. Since then, two of her works have been made into films. She now lives in San Francisco.
Cathy Silber is an acclaimed translator of Chinese literature who teaches at Wesleyan University.
Washington Post
A beautifully published novel meant to be bought by Asian and Caucasian alike.
San Francisco Chronicle
Geling Yan . . . writes with such haunting imagery that the reader is gently drawn into her world . . . the novel works.
Travel & Leisure
At turns both poignant and brutal, the novel captures both the era's intense desire for a better life and the atrocities against outsiders who dared to break the rules.
Washington Post -
Carolyn See
How personally are we supposed to take impersonal injustice, and for how long? Geling Yan rants against today's "mean, critical faces of Customs and Immigration" bureaucrats, and complains that the wealth of Chinese Americans "builds up the way dust does, barely." Finally: "We have no outlet for our hatred and rage." No street corner on which to lament. Only, in this case, a beautifully published novel meant to be bought by Asian and Caucasian alike.
New York Times Book Review -
Philip Gambone
The Lost Daughter of Happiness, handsomely translated by Cathy Silber, is both a conversation across centuries and a deft exploration of the wondrous and sad inscrutability of the human heart.
Ha Jin
Geling Yan stands as an eminent writer from the Chinese diaspora. The Lost Daughters of Happiness is an ambitious, eloquent, and unique book.
San Francisco Chronicle
With simple but powerful prose, Geling Yan evokes electrifying scenes of great cruelty and sensuality.
New York Times
A conversation across centuries and a deft exploration of the wondrous and sad inscrutability of the human heart.
Publishers Weekly
Yan, who fled her native China after the Tiananmen Square massacre, counts herself part of the "fifth wave" of Chinese immigrants to California. In this potentially intriguing but flatly told novel, she tells the story of a "first wave" forebear, Chinese prostitute Fusang, who became a celebrity in 1870s San Francisco. Kidnapped from her village in China to be sold as a prostitute in "Gold Mountain," as the Chinese immigrants dubbed San Francisco, Fusang distinguishes herself through her extraordinary serenity, which many take for slow-wittedness. Once in the U. S., she runs afoul of her madams by refusing to hawk herself aggressively to potential customers. Despite Fusang's reserve, she attracts a slew of devoted lovers, including Chris, a "little white devil" who is only 12 when he first purchases Fusang's services. Chris tails Fusang around San Francisco's Chinatown and follows her adventures over the next four decades. After prompting a bloody battle between two suitors, nearly dying of tuberculosis and being healed by the Christian ladies of the Rescue society, Fusang is stolen by the charismatic Chinese gangster Ah Ding, who changes his name to Da Yong to elude his enemies. The fugitive pair encounter the sordid splendor of Chinatown, witnessing slave auctions and mob riots and enduring attacks by threatened whites. Fusang is a real historical figure about whom little is known; Yan's account does little to clarify Fusang's motives. Such opacity creates an intriguing mystery, but lack of resolution frustrates the reader. Yan's detached, dispassionate tone contributes to the sense of unreality pervading her narrative. (Apr.) FYI: Yan, a former journalist whose first novel was published in China in 1985, wrote the script for the movie Xiu Xiu: The Sent-Down Girl. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
In this first novel, a young Chinese woman named Fusang is kidnapped and sold into prostitution in San Francisco during the Gold Rush. Based on an actual historical character, she is here presented through the sometimes distracting voice of the imagined writer, a descendant of Chinese immigrants, who compares impressions of Fusang's time with her own. Fusang is especially appealing in her simplicity and beauty, and she is loved and pursued by two different men a young, well-to-do white man, Chris, and a charismatic Chinese criminal, Da Yong. Her story reveals a brutal and lawless time and place when the Chinese were a despised group. Though the historical setting is intriguing, Fusang never becomes a fully realized character, and it is unclear whether she survives her ordeals through the power of her personality or a lack of intellect. Purchase only where there will be a strong interest in the subject. Cathleen A. Towey, Port Washington P.L., NY Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
The life of San Francisco prostitute Fusang ("the famous whore responsible for the city's bad reputation") is surveyed in this curiously flat novel by the Chinese expatriate author of the exquisite story collection White Snake (1999). It's set during the Gold Rush of the 1870s, narrated by both an omniscient author and an unnamed "writer" who addresses Fusang directly—a device that leads to moralizing, redundancy, and excessive summary. Yan has done her research but despite several vivid characters (notably the two very different men who love Fusang), the protagonist is made so representative of the fate of a generation of "lost daughters" that she never comes fully to life. As a result, a story that cries out for reader empathy instead leaves the reader frustrated and unmoved.
What People Are Saying
David Henry Hwang
An erotic epic bursting with intelligence, forbidden emotions, and disregard for easy answers . . . first great post-multicultural novel.
—(David Henry Hwang, author of M. Butterfly)
Aimee Liu
. . . a courageous and immensely talented writer . . . she has dared to face down the twin monsters of racism and sexual slavery . . .
—(Aimee Liu, author of Cloud Mountain)
Bharati Mukherjee
. . . extraordinary novel . . . finally a contemporary immigrant's testament to the Adam and Eve of a poisoned American garden.
—(Bharati Mukherjee, author of Jasmine)
Ha Jin
. . . combines myth and history and opens a new perspective on the American immigrant experience . . . an ambitious, eloquent, and unique book.
—(Ha Jin, author of Waiting)
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