Guest review by Helena Pielichaty: THE LAST BOAT OUT OF SHANGHAI by Helen Zia

 

"The broken paths are still being trodden, not mended. That is why stories like this are so important and need to be told."

Helena Pielichaty is a children’s writer. She has had over thirty books published, mainly by Oxford University Press and Walker Books. More on her website. 

Although there have been other works set around Shanghai during the turbulent 1930s-1950s, such as J G Ballard’s Empire of the Sun (1984) and Lilane Willens’ Stateless in Shanghai (2010), Helen Zia is the first to tell the story from a Chinese perspective. During an interview following the publication of Last Boat Out of Shanghai, the Chinese-American author, academic and activist declared: ‘There isn’t a single book in English about this; not even a dissertation.’

By ‘this’ she means what she calls ‘the forgotten exodus’ when, during the late 1940s, Shanghai became the epicentre for tens of thousands of people fleeing both the city and Chairman Mao Tse-Tung’s Communist regime. The book is the result of twelve years of meticulous research, including hundreds of hours of interviews with survivors, most of whom were in their seventies and eighties by then.

It is divided into four parts: ‘The Drumbeat of War’ (covering 1937), ‘Childhood under Siege’ (1939-1947) ‘Exodus’ (1948-1949) and ‘War’s Long Shadow’ (1949 -1957). Zia focuses on four of the interviewees: Benny Pan, Ho Chow, Bing Woo and Annabel Annuo Liu, beginning in 1937 when the Japanese took control of parts of Shanghai by force. Like all good non-fiction, Last Boat Out of Shanghai reads like fiction; and gripping fiction at that.

We are introduced first to Benny, a nine-year old boy with ‘unruly black hair, his knee socks bunched at the ankles.’ Benny is the favoured son of social-climbing parents, who, thanks to his father’s connections as an officer in the police auxiliary, enjoy a comfortable life-style. Like Jim in Ballard’s Empire of the Sun, Benny has learned to cycle past the dilapidated shacks and squalid tenements ‘reeking of raw sewage’ and to look the other way if he sees a dead body.

Next, we meet Ho, an earnest 13-year-old: ‘lanky, bedraggled and bewildered’ who has accompanied his grandmother to the ‘safety’ of the city, mistakenly thinking, like many others, that Shanghai, with its foreign concessions populated by Americans, British, French, Russian Jews and - since 1941 - German Jews, would offer protection. On Ho’s shoulders rests the fate of his family’s future; he must not let them down.

Then we have eight-year-old ‘Bing’ formerly known as ‘Little Sister’ before her poverty-stricken father sold her two years earlier. She was re-named Bing by her new ‘Mama’, whom she had grown to love but who now appears to have deserted her, just like Baba had. A new home beckons in Shanghai with a different ‘mama’ - Miss Woo - and Miss Woo’s foul-tempered mother. Numbly, Bing awaits her fate.

Finally, there is Annuo, barely two years old. Annuo has a big brother, Charley, who swears to protect her from the incessant bombs, and a doting mother who is a trained physician. Of her father, Yongchio, away fighting for the Republic of China’s Nationalist Party, she is less certain. She senses he has an antipathy towards her for some reason and she is right. This antipathy grows as Annuo does; Yongchio’s anger flaring at every perceived wrong doing and any spark of independence.

Zia follows these four people’s shared histories for two decades. I learned so much about Chinese and Shanghai's culture, family hierarchies, food, the vibrant street life, and the volatile politics. Yet one of the hardest parts to read about is the period during the 1950s, when, having witnessed so much cruelty and overcome all kinds of odds to reach safety, Benny, Bing, Ho and Annuo then have to endure further hostility in their new countries. Those bound for America, especially, arrive at a time when Senator McCarthy’s ‘Reds under the Beds’ hysteria had whipped up suspicion and prejudice against any Chinese refugee, regardless of their background and political affiliations.

In the epilogue Zia concludes ‘…If told often enough, one day such stories may become lessons for historical reflection, not broken paths to be retrod.’ I’d like to think so, too, but given what happened during a recent, similar ‘exodus’ – that of Afghans fleeing the Taliban in 2021 - the broken paths are still being trodden, not mended. That is why stories like this are so important and need to be told.

The Last Boat out of Shanghai is published by Ballantine Books.

Virtual Costa Book Awards Part 2: Celia Rees and guests

The second part of our Virtual Award nominations by guests past, present and future. Part  3 next week!

HELENA PIELICHATY nominates Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus for the Virtual Costa First Novel Prize:

It was Penny Dolan’s enthusiastic review on this blog that alerted me to this sublime novel, which I have no hesitation in nominating as my book of the year, not only in the debut category but as overall winner, too. Lessons in Chemistry captivated me from start to finish. In Elizabeth Zott, the book’s main character, Garmus has created a heroine, not only for the 1960s, when the book is set, but for today. Zott is every bright woman who has been told to ‘know her place’, who has had her ideas ignored or stolen by male colleagues, and has had to forge on through adversity. Garmus takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride of emotions with verve, wit and warmth. It is everything fiction should be and I applaud her for it. Read it. Read it now.

PHILIP WOMACK nominates The Young Accomplice by Benjamin Wood for the Virtual Costa Novel Prize:

Benjamin Wood's latest novel, The Young Accomplice, is a mature, reflective and immersive piece of work. Set on a farm in Surrey run by an architect with utopian ideals, the book details how the arrival of two young offenders disrupt the status quo. Exquisitely written, it marks Wood out as one of our best young writers.

CINDY JEFFERIES nominates Treacle Walker by Alan Garner for the Virtual Costa Novel Prize:

Living where I do, how could I not select Treacle Walker as the best novel in 2022? The rag and bone man no longer plies his trade here, but the scrap metal man does, his call echoing around the hilly streets as he passes. And this Christmas month a local college offered 'meditation, ritual and an appreciation of Garner's books, to find the crossing place that brings us home.'

Treacle Walker is both difficult and simple, profound and teasing. It has comics and donkey stones, magic and misunderstanding. Is it the only novel ever shortlisted for the Booker prize to be also suitable for children? (excepting the odd word certain adults might not approve of) Will my seven year old granddaughter understand it? Do I? We will travel its pages together, helping each other along the way.

I didn't go to the college's session, but the end of Treacle Walker feels very much like coming home. You don't need a scrap metal merchant's cry echoing in your ears to enjoy this book; you just need to feel the past, the present and the future in your heart.

LINDA SARGENT nominates Light Rains Sometimes Fall: A British Year Through Japan’s 72 Seasons by Lev Parikian for the Virtual Costa Biography Award (which may be stretching the category somewhat, but these are our awards and we'll distribute them as we wish!)

As a friend once wisely observed, “sometimes we forget what we’re good at”, a kind of disconnection perhaps. It could be said that in 2020 the world was given a chance to reconnect with the minutiae of our natural world. And this beautifully poetic and humorously written book is one reminder of how we might pick up those threads. Here the author follows the ancient Japanese model of the seasons, seventy-two in all. Imitating the Japanese approach with chapter headings ranging from Woodpeckers Start Drumming, Flying Ants Fill the Sky, to Leaves Lie Thick on the Grass, he covers just a few days at a time, detailing his daily walks in the local cemetery, common or his own garden, finding joy in the small things and gently guiding the reader to follow, wherever they live, during the same period. A gem of a book.

It would be nice to hear an owl.

I do not hear an owl.

But the air is damp and soft, and not as cold as I imagined, and I head back home considerably calmed by the experience.

BERLIE DOHERTY nominates The Boy Lost in the Maze by Joseph Coelho for the Virtual Costa Poetry Prize:

The Boy Lost in the Maze is a novel told in poems. It's not a verse novel. Each episode is a new complete poem, distinct in form and content. There are two narrators, Theo and`Theseus, both sixteen: one a boy from today, one the mythical future Greek king. Theo is estranged from his father and desperate to find him. He is fascinated by the story of Theseus, and his search for his own father. Both boys have been lied to about their past and are determined to unravel the lies and find the truth. Theo's journey echoes emotionally and physically, the 'labours' of Theseus. The adventures of the two youths are graphically told in a sequence of fine poems that are sometimes free-form, sometimes rap, sometimes highly structured.

This powerful, painful, and exciting poetry novel is illustrated by Kate Milner. Her artwork is dramatic and balletic, a fitting complement to an exceptional book for older teenagers and adult readers.

LINDA NEWBERY nominates The Flames by Sophie Haydock for the Virtual Costa First Novel Prize:

Who could resist a novel set in Vienna, exploring the viewpoints of four women who modelled for that most provocative of artists, Egon Schiele? Certainly not me. Sophie Haydock's assured first novel conveys the atmosphere of bohemian Vienna in the years leading up to the First World War in her depiction of the troubled relationships and rivalries, of Schiele's driving ambition and the place he established for himself alongside his better-known mentor, Gustav Klimt; and, of course, the women themselves and their often unconventional lives. You'll certainly want to see more of Schiele's work after reading this, and his depictions of these four women: see Sophie Haydock's egonschieleswomen on Instagram for images and background.

PIPPA GOODHART nominates Three Little Monkeys Ride Again, by Quentin Blake with illustrations by Emma Chichester Clark, for the Virtual Costa Children's Book Prize:

This is such a joy of book! We’ve met the three exuberantly naughty little monkeys before, and it’s very clear that Blake and Chichester Clark love playing with them and their host Hilda, and that eternally deliciously enjoyable quality of naughtiness in others. This time, extravagantly hatted Hilda Snibbs takes those three little monkeys to visit her old mother at her ‘calm and peaceful’ house. But whenever boredom hits, the spectacular, yet relatable, monkey naughtiness ensues. What chaos! What protestations that Hilda will never take on holiday again! But then all comes good. ‘Thank goodness I brought you on holiday.’ But we’re left with one last dollop of gorgeously illustrated ducks in the sink, frogs in the rice pudding, pond weed everywhere, naughtiness to show that nothing so very much has changed!

 

CELIA REES nominates Bad Actors by Mick Herron for the Virtual Costa Novel Prize:

My choice is Mick Herron's Bad Actors precisely because as a genre novel, 8th in a series and a recently aired big budget TV production it would NEVER have been nominated for the actual late lamented Costas. It is, however, MY Best Novel of 2022.

Adele Geras and I are both massive Mick Herron fans and look forward to each new Slough House book. We are never disappointed. Mick Herron is one of the few writers who can make me laugh out loud and he is the only writer I know who even attempts to examine the current British political scene, faithfully chronicling our times from terrorist attacks through Brexit to the pandemic with all the accompanying betrayals, back stabbings, political missteps, coverups, bare faced lying, Whitehall shenanigans, astounding inefficiency and corruption. I hesitated to use the word 'satire' when applied to his books because, given what has happened in the months since Bad Actors was published, even Mick Herron couldn't make it up. He is the Jonathan Swift de nos jours and I can't wait to read the book he must be working on now...

I urge anyone who hasn't already, to read the Slough House books from the beginning. You have a treat in store.

 Click here for Part 1 ...

Guest review by Helena Pielichaty: THE GIFTS by Liz Hyder

 

"Something extraordinary and haunting ..."

Helena Pielichaty is a children’s writer. She has had over thirty books published, mainly by Oxford University Press and Walker Books.

Website: www. helenapielichaty.com 

A few chapters in to Liz Hyder’s engrossing debut adult novel, a Thames boatman finds a woman’s body: ‘It is not the usual sort that Peter King drags from the murky Thames with his hook. She is older, for a start. Silver hair and pale white skin. She looks in good nick, he thinks to himself, as if she has fallen asleep underneath the waves …’

No, don’t roll your eyes. The Gifts is not another crime story of a hapless female victim and the detective sent to solve the case. This story is different, for the body is different. As Peter King discovers, this dead woman’s body has wings. Seizing the opportunity to make money, King hears that a surgeon is in attendance in his tenement. ‘Might you be interested in a curio, Sir? A body with some distortion to it, perhaps?’

Surgeon Edward Meake is most interested. The corpse is brought back to his basement to be analysed and dissected. As Meake severs the wings, his curiosity is piqued, his ambition ignited. Could this be his chance to make his name? To outshine his rival, the more flamboyant Samuel Covell? When, a little later, he takes possession of another ‘angel’, this time very much alive, his question is answered and his destiny is sealed.

Meake is one of five main protagonists in this multi-narrative, fantasy-reality tale set in 1840. The other four are women: Etta, a botanist, daughter of a deceased free-born Jamaican slave and a wealthy Shropshire landowner. Natalya, a gifted storyteller, forced to leave the serenity of her remote Scottish island to seek, she hopes, lodgings with her cousin in London. Eighteen-year-old Mary, the spirited ward of journalist Jos and the late George, reduced by circumstance to doing piecework by fixing buttons on cards. Finally, there is Annie Meake, Edward’s wife, a talented artist, desperate to conceive. Over the course of the 469-page book, Hyder skilfully nudges these characters towards each other, one powerful voice at a time, until they inevitably converge.

The Gifts is a page turner with a feminist twist. Through the four women’s experiences, we are left in no doubt about the unequal status of women in the mid-nineteenth century, a time when men felt they had ‘God-given’ rights over women and the law supported the notion. Yet it was also a time when women began to rebel against this misogyny. Although such ground has been well covered in fiction and non-fiction (the recent televising of Ann Lister’s diaries, Gentleman Jack, springs to mind as one example), by having two of her characters possess something as supernatural as wings, Hyder is able to explore these injustices in a freshly-imagined way. Wings can be ‘clipped’ and they can be used to soar – metaphors which are played well here.

It is hard to believe this is only Hyder’s second book, so seasoned a writer does she seem. Her first was the highly acclaimed Bearmouth, a dystopian YA novel which won the Branford Boase Award 2020 and the Waterstones Children’s Book of the Year for Older Readers 2020. Hyder makes the crossing from YA to adult seamlessly, bringing with her, perhaps, the caveat of making sure something happens on every page. Multi-narratives risk the reader losing track of the various strands but Hyder avoids this by keeping the chapters short and pacy. The result is something extraordinary and haunting and I applaud her for it. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.

The Gifts is published by Manilla Press.