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    The Distant Land of My Father: A Novel of Shanghai
    Unavailable
    The Distant Land of My Father: A Novel of Shanghai
    Unavailable
    The Distant Land of My Father: A Novel of Shanghai
    Ebook460 pages9 hours

    The Distant Land of My Father: A Novel of Shanghai

    By Bo Caldwell

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    For Anna, the narrator of Bo Caldwell's richly lyrical and vivid first novel, growing up in the magical world of Shanghai in the 1930s and 1940s creates a special bond between her and her father. He is the son of missionaries, a smuggler, and a millionaire who leads a charmed but secretive life. When the family flees to Los Angeles in the face of the Japanese occupation, he chooses to remain, believing his connections and luck will keep him safe.
    He's wrong. He survives, only to again choose Shanghai over his family during the Second World War. Anna and her father reconnect late in his life, when she finally has a family of her own, but it is only when she discovers his extensive journals that she is able to fully understand him and the reasons for his absences. With the intensity and appeal of When We Were Orphans, also set in Shanghai at the same time, The Distant Land of My Father tells a moving and unforgettable story about a most unusual father-daughter relationship.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChronicle Books Digital
    Release dateApr 29, 2011
    ISBN9780811875219
    Unavailable
    The Distant Land of My Father: A Novel of Shanghai
    Author

    Bo Caldwell

    Bo Caldwell is the author of the national bestseller The Distant Land of My Father and the novel City of Tranquil Light. Her short fiction has been published in Ploughshares, Story, Epoch, and other literary journals. A former Stegner Fellow in Creative Writing at Stanford University, she lives in Northern California with her husband, novelist Ron Hansen.

    Read more from Bo Caldwell

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    Reviews for The Distant Land of My Father

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    • 5/5
      The narrator of The Distant Land of My Father by Bo Caldwell is six years old in 1937 when the book begins. Anna and her parents live in Shanghai. Her father is wealthy but grew up as the son of American missionaries in China. We don't know exactly how her father earns enough to support the lavish lifestyle they lead, he just describes himself as "a businessman".Anna's father loves China and wants her to love it too. He teaches her Mandarin words and walks with her through Shanghai on Saturday mornings teaching her street and building names. When the Japanese occupy Shanghai, Anna and her mother leave China, the only home Anna knows, to return to her mother's home in California. Her father, saying there is too much opportunity for him to leave, remains. Anna, through memory and later through her father's journals, continues to tell her family's story, a story of betrayal, reconciliation, and love.Its hard to believe that this is Caldwell's first novel. She grabs our attention from the beginning: "My father was a millionaire in the 1930s. Polo ponies, a Sikh chauffeur, a villa on eight acres in Hungjao, in the western part of the city. Nights out with my mother at the Cercle Sportif Francais, the Venus Cafe, the Cathay Hotel, the Del Monte - these were the details of his life. He was also an insurance salesman and a smuggler, an importer-exporter and a prisoner, a borrower and a spender, leading, much of the time, a charmed life, always seeming to play the odds and for a long time coming out on top".
    • 4/5
      I really liked this book. I thought the description of the period was spot on (cashmere bouquet soap, Dewar's scotch etc.) The luxury experienced by the characters in Shanghai before the war was yummy. Anna as a child encountered much with her 5 senses..like any young child, and then later as an adult puts some pieces together. This is true to form in real life and brings the reader along for the ride. I wondered if we would discover that the protagonist had an undiagnosed mental illness. Like other accounts that describe communist treatment of their captives, we, like the characters, never discover why some prisoners are executed, some are tortured and some are released.. the randomness of it is bewildering.
    • 5/5
      When I was done with this book I just sat holding it because it was so moving and so intense through the whole book. I don't think there was a page I hurried through. It was so rich in its story and detail. Briefly, Anna an only child living with her parents in Shanghai in the 30s. Her father had lived there with his missionary parents and after meeting his wife in college, they got married and moved back to Shanghai where he was a "businessman". He mostly bought things people needed for a low price and sold it to them for a high price. Things start to turn ugly with the Japanese and Anna's mother books passage for Anna and herself hoping it will force her husband to follow. This book was written in the first person and you would swear it is a memoir. I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn't.
    • 4/5
      Beautiful novel. The details of place and depth of character in this book made it a very fulfilling read. The pictures in my mind were clear and full from the prose Ms. Caldwell created.
    • 3/5
      This is the sort of character-driven book that's very difficult for me to review. The Distant Land of my Father is the story of Anna Schoene and her father Joseph, a Chinese-born American citizen, in the mid-20th century. It is the story of Anna's relationship with her father; since it's a character-driven book, it won't surprise anyone to learn that the arc of the relationship is from a young girl idolizing her father, through disillusionment and rejection, to forgiveness. There is, essentially, no plot; major events of the twentieth century affect the characters, but they don't really do much, and the tone is somewhat removed. The writing is evocative of both Shanghai and Los Angeles; the LA parts ring very true, referencing specific places that still exist , which gives me confidence that the Shanghai part may be similarly well-researched.
    • 3/5
      Have read this book before and have read it again for this months book group. Didn't get anything more out of this book a second time around. Did find the war and prison parts in the book very hard going. Felt the dad was very selfish at times and I got annoyed with the character.
    • 4/5
      Fiction that reads like fact. Relationship between daughter and her father - realistic and satisfying. War parts and prison parts hard to read. The ending was good and I was happy I read the book. Well written.
    • 4/5
      thoroughly engrossing story of a city and a young girls experience. I now plan to add Shanghai to my list of places to visit one day - it was not on the list until I read this novel.
    • 4/5
      Elegant story about the meaning of place, memory, and home. The memoir style lends the story a striking realism and Caldwell's clean prose brings pre-war Shanghai vibrantly to life. The story begins in Shanghai and is that of an expatriate American couple and their young daughter. The approaching war forces the mother and child to leave for Los Angeles, but the father, certain his connections will protect him, remains behind in his beloved Shanghai. Many years later, Anna finds her father's journals and at last learns about the man believed abandoned and betrayed his family. Moving story of loss and reconciliation.