My old home : a novel of exile / Orville Schell.
Material type:
TextPublisher: New York : Pantheon Books, [2021]Copyright date: ©2021Edition: First editionDescription: 601 pages ; 25 cmContent type: - text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780593315811
- 0593315812
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
|
Main Library | Fiction | SCHELL, ORVILLE | Available | 33111010488415 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
A uniquely experienced observer of China gives us a sweeping historical novel that takes us on a journey from the rise of Mao Zedong in 1949 to the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989, as a father and his son are swept away by a relentless series of devastating events.
It's 1950, and pianist Li Tongshu is one of the few Chinese to have graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Engaged to a Chinese-American violinist who is the daughter of a missionary father and a Shanghai-born mother, Li Tongshu is drawn not just by Mao's grand promise to "build a new China" but also by the enthusiasm of many other Chinese artists and scientists living abroad, who take hope in Mao's promise of a rejuvenated China. And so when the recently established Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing offers Li Tongshu a teaching position, he leaves San Francisco and returns home with his new wife.
But instead of being allowed to teach, Li Tongshu is plunged into Mao's manic revolution, which becomes deeply distrustful of his Western education and his American wife. It's not long before his son, Little Li, also gets caught up in the maelstrom of political and ideological upheaval that ends up not only savaging the Li family but, ultimately, destroying the essential fabric of Chinese society.
"A uniquely experienced observer of China now gives us a novel that recounts the familiar but still mesmerizing events from the rise of Mao to the Tiananmen Square uprising, and the impact of that history on one father and son. At the center: Li Tongshu, one of the few Chinese citizens ever to graduate from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He is married to Vivian Knight, a Chinese American violinist. Tongshu is drawn by Mao's promise "to build a new China," and by the enthusiasm so many other Chinese artists and scientists living abroad express at that prospect. The odds of Tongshu ever having a successful career as a performer in the US are small, and so when the new president of the recently established Central Academy of China offers him a teaching position, he decides to return home with his family. But now, Tongshu will be forced to contend with the erratic and unexpected shifts of a government determined to control the beliefs and convictions of the people; with suspicion of the Western culture that educated him; and with how the fortune and experience his son, Little Li, becomes caught up in the maelstrom of political and ideological upheaval that not only threatens to destroy his family, but that will ultimately destroy the essential fabric of Chinese society."--Provided by publisher.