[Wayfarers] Peach Blossom Spring
Our Wayfarers Book Club Guide to this highly recommend read
Dear Wayfarers and BookLoves,
As part of our Summer Reads, I’m happy to share this Wayfarers Book Club Guide to our July pick, and a highly recommended read: Peach Blossom Spring, by Melissa Fu.
Peach Blossom Spring, by Qiu Ying
Why I chose this book
Historical fiction inspired by the writer’s own family, set in China, and Taiwan, featuring a marvelously strong female protagonist? Uhm, yes, please!
Each of those elements intrigue and connect with me so deeply, on a personal and professional level, that I could easily write a full essay about how each contributed to my choice and experience of this novel.
(In fact, in a draft of this Letter, I did just that! But it got awfully wordy and wandered away from the book, so I reined myself in and will now keep —as best I can— to how I connected to the two main characters. :)
Meilin, the mother and protagonist in the first part of this story, is everything I admire in a protagonist. Life veered in a direction she never anticipated, again and again, and each time she adapted.
You might say, “Well, of course she did.”
Yes. And no. Most of us do adapt, it’s true. I would say, though, that few of us have Meilin’s strength, to not only cope with repeated hurt and loss, but to remain as loving and caring as she did. It’s this that I admire most in her.
In historical fiction, I also truly appreciate stories about the role women played during times of societal change and, above all, how they empowered themselves and others. I certainly walked away with a new appreciation for what Chinese women endured and contributed in this particular period.
As for Renshu, the son in this novel, I saw aspects of my own father and my father-in-law. Like Renshu, my father-in-law was born in China and lived through some of The War of Resistance, then escaped to Hong Kong as a young man because of the Civil War. None of his family talks very much about those years, or what followed, how all seven children, their mother and father, eventually left and settled in Australia, Canada, and the US.
It may well be like Renshu said: they survived by moving forward.
That’s certainly a sentiment echoed by many migrants, immigrants, refugees, anyone who has experienced the horrors of war and displacement. I understand the reticence to relive traumatic times. It took my own father decades before he spoke about his experiences as a Canadian soldier during World War II.
Yet it’s these stories in particular that help us —help me— to understand and more fully appreciate who people are now as a result. So I’m terrifically grateful to Melissa Fu for sharing this story and providing insight through the lens of fiction.
About the author and this book
To learn about the genesis of this book, Melissa Fu penned a fabulous essay for LitHub: “How a Secret Becomes a Story: Melissa Fu on the Importance of Listening to Elders.”
(How often I have wished that I took even one hastily scribbled note of my own father’s stories, and asked my mother for hers…)
Melissa’s website is FULL of gems, including a Reader’s Area with photos, videos, songs, a folktale companion guide, historical info and insight into the characters.
And in this Harvard Book Store interview with Helen Zia, Melissa Fu touches on her heritage and its influence on the book, her research and the leap to fiction, women's stories at this time and in this place in particular, her writing process and one novel she read that helped her to feel like it was possible to write hers:
A glance at some of the places in the book
No Wayfarers journey is complete without a glimpse into the setting of our books! The links below are not from Meilin and Renshu’s time in these cities, but rather give you a sense of the places today.
Changsha, Hunan Province:
Walking in Stunning Downtown Changsha from Day to Night (an hour long! feel free to spin through at 2x speed or more)
Street Food Feast (sexy tea, anyone?!)
Chongqing, Sichuan Province:
Chongqing - largest city in the world? Huge Chinese megapolis in the middle of Sichuan mountains (includes some historical details and footage relevant to Peach Blossom Spring, a subway train that passes through a building, and the coolest bookstore)
Keelung Harbour, Taiwan:
Taiwan Travel - Keelung 1-Day Trip (with a soundtrack that, well, just doesn’t seem to fit)
Taiwanese Street Food - Keelung Night Market (no explanations, just super intriguing dishes)
If you indulged in this book, I do so hope you found even a pinch of what Yolanda did:
Thank you so much, Lisa, for selecting Peach Blossom Spring as the July book for Wayfarers Book Club! Wow, just wow! I LOVE this book! I felt all the feelings and it shocked me how much I connected with the story & the characters.”
Yay!
Want to share your experience of this read? I’ll open a discussion thread here at the end of the month, so please do join in then! (Or comment here, now. :)
If you already subscribe to Wayfarers, we’ll still meet for a live café chat on the last Sunday at 3 pm ET. Watch your inbox for the usual link.
Next up in Wayfarers Book Club: Summer 2022 Reads:
August
Moccasin Square Gardens, by Richard Van Camp
A fabulously unique collection of short stories by a writer from the Dogrib (Tłı̨chǫ) Dene Nation in Canada’s Northwest Territories that had me howl with laughter, feel into the mystery, and often left me haunted.
Stay tuned here for the Guide in mid-August!
Wherever your journeys take you, inside or outside of stories, may they open new vistas, experiences and understanding.
Yours in BookLove,
~Lisa
Lisa Carter is Founder and Creative Director of Intralingo, helping authors and translators write and readers explore stories. Lisa brings two decades of professional literary experience, including nine books and multiple other pieces published in translation, and nearly as many years of contemplative and compassion practices to her work. Her inclusive, engaged, caring presence inspires people to share their stories, create new ones and feel truly heard.
My thanks to Little, Brown and company for the ARC of Peach Blossom Spring!
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