Shanghai, 2007: Fourteen-year-old Alva has always longed for more. Raised by her American expat mother, she’s never known her Chinese father, and is certain a better life awaits them in America. But when her mother announces her engagement to their wealthy Chinese landlord, Lu Fang, Alva’s hopes are dashed, and so she plots for the next best thing: the American School in Shanghai. Upon admission, though, Alva is surprised to discover an institution run by an exclusive community of expats and the ever-wilder thrills of a city where foreigners can ostensibly act as they please. 1985: In the seaside city of Qingdao, Lu Fang is a young, married man and a lowly clerk in a shipping yard. Though he once dreamed of a bright future, he is one of many casualties in his country’s harsh political reforms. So when China opens its doors to the first wave of foreigners in decades, Lu Fang’s world is split wide open after he meets an American woman who makes him confront difficult questions about his current status in life, and how much will ever be enough.
River East, River West was nominated to the Women’s Prize for fiction.
It follows two stories:
- The main one is 14 year old Alva, born of an American immigrant and an unknown Chinese father. She wants to be American; her mom has completely rejected her country of origin and loves China more than anything.
- The other one is 50+ year old Lu Fang, a man who was promised a bright future, saw it brutally interrupted by the Cultural Revolution, and became a millionaire when capitalism came to China.
In the first chapter, Alva is terribly angry because her mother is getting married to their landlord, Lu Fang. It takes
It quickly turns out they’re really in love, unlike what Alva believed. And the reason for that is somewhere in Lu Fang’s past. So the story retraces Alva’s rebellion, as she tries to chase the thrill more and more, running away from home and battling the alcohol addiction that she seems to have inherited from her mother. But every time something happens, it’s mirrored in Lu Fang’s young years − and the first time the young married man saw a foreigner, a beautiful American woman with bleached hair.
A beautiful exploration of two very different, and yet very close, time periods of modern China. I loved it (and bonus points for mentioning places I enjoyed visiting during my time in Shanghai).