Under Fishbone Cloudsis a universal love story, a family saga, and a journey through Chinese history, myth, and culture. Following a young Chinese couple as their love grows, and is tested, during Mao's Cultural Revolution, this elegant debut novel provides a rare and personal glimpse into the birth modern China.When the Kitchen God is challenged by the Jade Emperor to fathom the workings of the human heart, he chooses to follow the life of Jinyi and his wife Yuying, from their blossoming love until their old age, in hope of finding an answer. The Kitchen God watches as the new government strictures split their family in two, living inside their hearts as they they endure the loss of two children, homesickness, and isolation, all while keeping alive a love that survives famine, forced labor, and even death. Weaving together the story of their life with China’s recent political history, as well as traditional folktales and myths, the Kitchen God illuminates the most impenetrable aspects the human condition.Sam Meekings's remarkable debut novel showcases his luminous, poetic writing, as well as insights that belong to a writer twice his age. Part love story and part historical narrative,Under Fishbone Cloudscarries the weight and beauty of a lifetime's achievement.From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Meekings explores in his accomplished debut the inner workings of a Chinese couple's marriage before, during, and after the Cultural Revolution. Told from the perspective of the Kitchen God, who has been challenged by the Jade Emperor to unravel the mysteries of the human heart, the tale begins in 1946 as Jinyi and Yuying are soon to be wed. Skipping back to 1942 and 1944 to explore formative events in each one's past, the story takes the reader on a riveting trip of unrelenting trials and tribulations ranging from the loss of three sons to enforced work camps to, in the recent past, life-threatening illness. Still, through even the longest of separations and hardships, the couple's love endures, proving that the human spirit can rebound from the most dire of circumstances. Meekings is a bangup storyteller, and his easy handling of rich and varied material--rustic splendor, class warfare, profound anguish, drastic social changes--will keep readers rapt. This is a beautifully told love story as well as an absorbing study in Chinese folklore and history.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistStarred ReviewFoolishly, the Chinese Kitchen God speaks ill of the head deity, the Jade Emperor. For this he is challenged to discover the true workings of the human heart, and he carries out this task by following the lives of Yuying and her husband, Jinyi. It is his voice that transports the reader into twentieth-century China, where Jinyi and Yuying attempt to hold their love together through years of war, famine, and the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Yuying’s father, unwilling to allow other rich families access to his wealth, marries her to the poverty-stricken orphan Jinyi, who suffered through years of hard labor while traveling to the city in search of work. As their love slowly blossoms, Yuying and Jinyi are forced to flee as war sweeps through the city. Traveling to and living in the devastatingly impoverished countryside is a rude awakening for Yuying as is the Cultural Revolution, which does not look kindly on her due to her bourgeois upbringing. The tragedies and triumphs of their lives together are eloquently enunciated in the voice of the Kitchen God, who manages to tell his own story as well. As utterly engrossing as it is well penned, this is a wonderful debut about the lengths that love can take us. --Julie Hunt