The approach makes sense for a family saga, but it also made the first few pages feel somewhat perfunctory, like, here’s all the backstory before we get to the real focus.Īnother part I think is that Meilin just had a LOT more going on in her life, events-wise, than Henry and Lily later would. I think part of it is that the author begins with a very distant tone, listing the Daos and their relationships to each other. That being said, I found it to be a slow start, and while aspects of Meilin’s story were very striking and moving, it wasn’t until Renshu came to America that I felt the story really pulled me in. Meilin’s story covered an area of history I’m not too familiar with, so I’m really glad that this piece of Chinese history is being told to a wide audience in an English language book.

Both the stories in the scroll and the story of the scroll itself are rich with meaning, emotion, and resonance, and just utterly wrecked me. But in this case, Melissa Fu makes it work. I’m usually a bit leery when a writer gets a bit too heavy-handed with the symbolisms of an object, particularly when it’s such an obvious metaphor as a scroll of ancient stories. The moment, decades later, when Renshu learns the way the story really ended was probably one of the most heart-wrenching scenes in the novel for me. The stories on the scroll keep Meilin and Renshu’s spirits high during the scariest and most dangerous parts of their journey, and ‘Peach Blossom Spring’ in particular is a lovely narrative about a man who leaves home and comes upon a magical place.Īn older man overhears Meilin read the story to Renshu for the first time, and observes that Meilin stopped before she got to the ending. The title of the novel comes from an old Chinese story, one of many illustrated on a scroll that Meilin’s husband gives her, and that she takes when she and Renshu flee China. And when Lily takes Chinese language classes and tries to learn more about her heritage, she finds the topic completely shuts her father down. For his mother’s sake, Henry keeps a low profile on his Chinese heritage, and by the time he gets married to a white woman, and has a daughter Lily, he barely ever talks about his past anymore. His early attempts to make friends with fellow Chinese students take a scary turn when he realizes student activities are being reported back to the Chinese government, with some real and drastic consequences for their families still with ties to the mainland. Renshu eventually goes to America for university, and the story picks up there, where he changes his name to Henry Dao. It begins in 1938 with Meilin, a young widow who escapes to Taiwan with her son Renshu when Japan invades their village in China. Peach Blossom Spring is a moving and evocative family saga that spans the stories of three generations.

Book peach blossom spring