Review: Where Waters Meet by Zhang Ling
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Where Waters Meet, the first novel Zhang Ling wrote in English, was breathtaking. For someone whose English is secondary, there’s not a moment that steered my interest away. This beautiful novel captures the extraordinary strength of a multigenerational point of view of women through some of the most tumultuous times in Chinese history.
Upon the death of her mother, deeply heart broken, she finds some mementos that leave her curious about the secret life of her mother. In a quest to fulfill her curiosity, Phoenix Yuan-Whyller boards a flight to China to connect with her mother’s sister, Mei. As her aunt Mei recounts her past, Phoenix discovers the secrets of a painful past that redefined everything she ever knew.
There are no words to describe how wonderful this book is. From the gorgeous cover that invites you in, the beautiful words that grace the pages, it was an experience that grips your emotions and doesn’t let go. There was something special in the sensitive simplicity of her words that left a heavy imprint on my consciousness. As a reader, being able to experience the events through her perspective was haunting and impactful.
What I loved the most about the book was the unique historical perspective coming from someone who represents the culture of the core of the narrative. Her perspective through many of the historical events in the book brought awareness to my interest having not heard of much that was spoken of. What these women endured through the atrocities of war but survived just gives me a new appreciation of life because they went through some things that I don’t know how anyone could have made it. The resilience of the inhumane physical and mental abuse and the fight to gain the courage to survive was remarkable.
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Summary:
A daughter discovers the dramatic history that shaped her mother’s secret life in an emotional and immersive novel written in English by Zhang Ling, the bestselling author of A SINGLE SWALLOW.
There was rarely a time when Phoenix Yuan-Whyller’s mother, Rain, didn’t live with her. Even when Phoenix got married, Rain, who followed her from China to Toronto, came to share Phoenix’s life. Now at the age of eighty-three, Rain’s unexpected death ushers in a heartrending separation.
Struggling with the loss, Phoenix comes across her mother’s suitcase—a memory box Rain had brought from home. Inside, Phoenix finds two old photographs and a decorative bottle holding a crystallized powder. Her auntie Mei tells her these missing pieces of her mother’s early life can only be explained when they meet, and so, clutching her mother’s ashes, Phoenix boards a plane for China. What at first seems like a daughter’s quest to uncover a mother’s secrets becomes a startling journey of self-discovery.
Told across decades and continents, Zhang Ling’s exquisite novel - her first to be written directly in English - is a tale of extraordinary courage and survival. It illuminates the resilience of humanity, the brutalities of life, the secrets we keep and those we share, and the driving forces it takes to survive.
