An intriguing debut novel from Pauline Chen, her "re-imagining" of the central plot of the Chinese classic, Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin, the 18th century novel widely acknowledged as the most significant work of fiction in the Chinese literary canon. Not many Westerners however have read the original, some 2,500 pages long with a cast of over 400 characters, and missing its original ending.
Chen story focuses on the three main female characters from the original: Lin Daiyu, the orphaned cousin come from the South to live on the sufferance of her mother's wealthy and politically connected family, the Jias of Beijing; Wang Xifeng, the ambitious wife of the eldest surviving Jia son, whose position in the family depends upon a husband she despises; and Xue Baochi, another cousin, whose cold reserve hides her longing for the Jia's younger son, handsome and heedless Baoyu. It is a world of opulent luxury for the privileged few and abject poverty for the teeming masses, in which women are powerless, dependent upon their male relatives, and pitted against each other by the system of concubinage.
When the Jia men are caught on the wrong side of Palace politics during a political coup that overthrows the old Emperor, they wind up imprisoned on trumped up charges, their property confiscated by the new Emperor. The women are left to fend for themselves, disgraced and impoverished. What bonds will hold the family together? What secrets will drive them apart? Who will survive, and who will die?
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