Vessel

May 10, 2021
Chongda paints a tantalizing portrait of a changing China in his dazzling English-language debut. Growing up in the 1980s in a coastal village in southern Fujian province, Chongda worked with his mother at his family’s gas station to support them after a series of strokes left his father paralyzed. In the words of his great grandmother, “Your body’s a vessel.... If you put your body to work, you can start to live.” Jumping between different moments in his youth, he depicts the tensions between traditional life in rural China and the influence of the flashier Western world, recalling how neighbors in his sleepy town bristled when “the streets began to glow with neon, and outsiders rushed in like the tide, patronizing the newly opened bars.” At one point, he remembers a classmate nicknamed Tiny, who arrived from the city in a luxury sedan with hair “the floppy style of Hong Kong singer Aaron Kwok.” Like Tiny, Chongda eventually escaped to the big city, where he worked as a reporter in Beijing. Looking back on his life, he concludes, “I have lived in the gap between worlds.” It’s in this space that his writing glows, juxtaposing the beauty of both small-town living and urban life. This shines with the bright talent of an excellent storyteller. Agent: Markus Hoffman, Regal Hoffman & Associates.

June 1, 2021
In the afterword for this collection of autobiographical and biographical essays, Cai says, "I often tell my friends that the greatest kindness you can do someone is try to understand them." Cai tries most to understand his father, who had a paralyzing stroke when Cai was a teen and died a few years later. He also turns his gaze to other people who helped shape his outlook on life, including his mother, neighborhood children, and university classmates, hoping that through contemplating them, he can start to understand himself. Through his journalistic eye, he makes astute and penetrating observations about human behavior and motivations. Though his essays grow shorter and lose steam towards the end, overall his pieces are deeply moving, particularly "Christmas in the ICU," which explores the social dynamics and camaraderie that develop during his father's long hospital stays, and "Bella Zhang," a profile of a local woman his conservative town brutally shuns despite her business successes. Cai's deep respect and love for the people who are important to him shine through in his beautiful and poignant profiles.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Starred review from July 1, 2021

With this debut, journalist Cai provides a moving collection of autobiographical essays, expertly translated by King. Each essay is centered around a particular person or event from Cai's life. Readers will get a sense of the course of his life from his childhood to the present, but because the essays are not exactly chronological, some events that Cai alludes to earlier in the book aren't explained in greater detail until later. This allows the author to reveal life events in interesting ways and offer a vivid portrait of family and friendship. Although there are glimpses into China's 21st-century political realities--for example, Cai's father loses his job for violating the one-child policy--this work isn't primarily concerned with politics. Rather, it is a window into aspects of family life, spiritual life, and day-to-day life in China more generally. This book brings specific attention to Fujian province, where the author grew up. VERDICT Essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary life in China, and highly recommended for memoir enthusiasts in general. Readers interested in personal histories of elite Chinese political families should also consider Lan Yan's memoir The House of Yan.--Joshua Wallace, Tarleton State Univ. Lib. Stephenville, TX

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.