![]() ![]() The subsequent story switches mainly between Seok Koon’s desperate efforts to rescue San San through trusted friends and a priest and San San’s attempts to escape on her own. San San remains on Drum Wave Islet, while the rest of the family joins the father, Ah Zhai, in Hong Kong, to stay. ![]() Now, with the party’s unexpected investigation, she is forced to leave a child behind as proof of the family’s plan to return. The children’s mother, Seok Koon, has devised a secret plan to procure permits for her children, the grandma and herself to visit Hong Kong, where her businessman husband lives. Suspecting the family’s loyalty to Mao, officials inspect their house. Ah Liam, eager to join the Party’s Youth League, reports the incident to the authorities. It has an arresting opening: Siblings Ah Liam and San San, 12 and 9, from a once-wealthy family, discover their grandmother, Bee Kim, destroying a portrait of Chairman Mao with a hammer. Taking place on Drum Wave Islet, an island off the southeastern coast, and in Hong Kong, Chen’s book is an engaging account of the Ong family’s escape to freedom at the height of political oppression. ![]() But it tells a different story, a lesser-known but engrossing account of people escaping to Hong Kong from mainland China. Kirstin Chen’s second novel, “Bury What We Cannot Take,” is set in early Maoist China, in 1957. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |