Inheritance

by Lan Samantha Chang

Spanning seven decades and set in China and America against a backdrop of political chaos and social upheaval, this arresting debut novel tells a timeless story of familial devotion undermined by deceit and passion and rebuilt by memory. In 1931, abandoned after their mother's suicide, the young Junan and her sister, Yinan, make a pact never to leave each other. The two girls are inseparable―until Junan enters into an arranged marriage and finds herself falling in love with her soldier husband. When the Japanese invade China, Junan and her husband are separated. Unable to follow him to the wartime capital, Junan makes the fateful decision to send her sister after him. Inheritance traces the echo of betrayal through generations and explores the elusive nature of trust.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, China, Asian Literature, Asia, Literary Fiction, Asian American

314 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Lan Samantha Chang was born in Appleton, Wisconsin and attended college at Yale where she earned her bachelor's degree in East Asian Studies. She worked in publishing in New York City briefly before getting her MPA from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and was a Wallace E. Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford. She is currently the Elizabeth M. Stanley Professor in the Arts at the University of Iowa and the Director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She is the first woman, and the first Asian American, to hold that position.

Chang's first book is a novella and short stories, titled Hunger (1998). The stories are set in the US and China, and they explore home, family, and loss. The New York Times Book Review called it "Elegant.… A delicately calculated balance sheet of the losses and gains of immigrants whose lives are stretched between two radically different cultures." The Washington Post called it "A work of gorgeous, enduring prose." Her first novel, Inheritance (2004), is about a family torn apart by the Japanese invasion during World War II. The Boston Globe said: "The story…is foreign in its historical sweep and social detail but universal in its emotional truth." Chang's latest novel, All Is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost (2011), follows two poets and their friendship as they explore the depths and costs of making art. The book received a starred review from Booklist and praise: "Among the many threads Chang elegantly pursues—the fraught relationships between mentors and students, the value of poetry, the price of ambition—it is her indelible portrait of the loneliness of artistic endeavor that will haunt readers the most in this exquisitely written novel about the poet’s lot." Chang's fourth book and third novel, The Family Chao, is forthcoming in 2022.

Chang has received fellowships from MacDowell, the American Library in Paris, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

As the fifth director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Chang has been fundamental to the increase of racial, cultural, and aesthetic diversity within the program, and has mentored a number of emerging writers. In 2019, she received the Michael J. Brody Award and the Regents' Award for Excellence from the University of Iowa.

Website: https://lansamanthachang.com/

Reviews

[Connie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

The mother of two sisters, Junan and Yinan, takes her own life. The Chinese woman had become depressed after hearing a rumor that her husband might take a second wife since she had been unable to produce a son. The two sisters draw together, becoming very close in spite of being very different. The beautiful, cool Junan is wed to Li Ang in an arranged marriage, and is surprised when she falls in love with him. During the 1930s when Japan invades China, soldier Li Ang is stationed in a far city. Pregnant Junan is unable to travel so she sends plain, poetic Yinan to care for his household. When Junan's trust is betrayed, she cannot forgive her sister Yinan and the family is torn apart.

Meanwhile China is experiencing turbulent times as it's being divided into the Nationalists and the Communists. Li Ang is fighting on one side and his brother Li Bing is following the Communists during the civil war in the 1940s. Junan and her daughters escape to safety in the United States during the political upheaval.

The story of four generations of this family is narrated by Junan's daughter, Hong, who is trying to understand her family's history. She is aided by the resilient old servant Hu Mudan who knows the family's secrets. The ideas of family, loyalty, betrayal, separation, and sacrifice are important in this interesting family saga. The story also shows the profound effects on the Chinese people, socially and politically, coming from the Japanese occupation, the civil war, and Mao's Communists gaining power.

[Smitha Murthy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am sometimes weird. You can take me to Haagen-Daaz, and buy me a perfectly crafted ice-cream that is frozen to just the right consistency. And I might like it and thank you fervently. But I might go outside and jump around in glee and joy because I have found a local ice-cream vendor on his push-cart. No great recipes. Just ice-cream melting in a box in the heat. But oh, if you want to win me over, it’s the local ice-cream that wins me over each time.

‘Inheritance’ was a bit like that. Beautifully crafted like a Haagen-Daaz ice-cream. Words that glisten with the writer’s craft. A well-told story. Pristine sentences. Moving. Really, nothing to be faulted. I liked it, but I wanted something more. I wanted to feel the wild abandon of words that move me to the core. I wanted my local ice-cream. My gaadi ice-cream as we say in India. 'Inheritance' felt a bit removed because the characters seemed remote.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 and a half stars for this book. I find it fascinating learning about cultures other than my own. The relationship between the two sisters, born in China, during a time when being born female was NOT favored. Their lives, their relationships with one another and others made for fascinating reading.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chang handles the slippery theme of loyalty when personal desire clashes with commitments to family, culture, or nation. Her characters are real in that they fail to resolve the betrayals they generate, and yet they each succeed in following their individual choices, each paying a heavy price. In spite of personal infidelities along with the disruptions of war and political upheaval that disperses the family over five generations into China, Taiwan, and America, the family holds together by thin threads. Told from the point of view of Hong, the daughter of Junan, it is primarily a story of her mother and her aunt, the two sisters who love the same man, who is Hong's father, a Nationalist Army general, a war hero, and a traitor. Like her father, Hong too follows her heart. Yet, it is never quite her story that takes center stage. In this sense, Chang, depicts the power of the family to overshadow the individual, even when living in the throes of war or in another culture in another land.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Chang's love story amiss impossible circumstances. Although perhaps true to form, I did not like how Junan took her hate and thus her pain to her grave. I love the imagery that Chang gives of how each sister became the other's phantom limb in that though they are no longer connected, they are nevertheless still feel the pain of loss.

In order for Chinese women to have their place secure in their men's eyes, they have to give birth to sons or else they will have to share their husbands with other women who could produce sons. Junan and Yinan are temperamentally different but are close with each other especially with the death of their mother. Junan is ruled by a Confusion sense of order. Their father, Wang is a gambler who unfortunately gambled his daughter into a marriage with Li An, an army lieutenant. Wang justified his choice by saying that political connections mattered more than money or family in China's modern order. To Wang's relatives, communists are the common man who want to rule but do not have the necessary skills to rule. Li An was struck by the self-possessed beauty of Junan.

While Junan was the perfect homemaker who is strategic enough not to fall in love with Li An while being able to control him, Yinan is a dreamer who wants to be in love when she marries and likes to do nothing but read, write, and paint. Unfortunately, Yinan was forced to get engaged with an old rich man who she does not love in order to strengthen Wang's business ties with a wealthy merchant.

Although Junan says that he does not love her husband, her actions point to that she does. For example, she was worried that her husband's promotion to Captain of the KMT would get to his head; thus treating her as a mistress. She realized how far her husband has come by the looks of respect that people looked to him and questions of a something wrong with women in their family for not producing a male heir. Meanwhile Yinan unhappily waits for her betrothed she does not want. In the meantime, Li Bang becomes her tutor. Although he is smart, he is morally rigid. Whereas Bing is nationalist for the Chinese cause, An just does stuff for personal ambition.

Although Junan is beautiful and intelligent, Li An was not happy that she was not producing him sons. In an era where men took on concubines or multiple wives, Junan had to be crafty due to Li An increase in position; thus, she sent Yinan to Li An in the hope of containing the situation and if Li An did stray away from her it would be with someone she had control over. Although fear pushed Junan to take this drastic step, she did not count on the value of pragmaticism, self-containment, beauty, loyalty, a sense of clarity and order that Li An valued in her. Furthermore, Junan realized by looking at her father's accounts, the he left them with nothing due to his gambling debts. He also value the lack of open jealousy that Junan seemed to possess. Li An gradually realized how different they operated when she refused to obey him as his wife. Whereas he was opportunistic in having luck flow his way, Junan was goal oriented and strategic about getting what she wants. Jujan later proves to be good with funds by hoarding materials that would sell very well in the black market.

It was opportune timing that allowed Yinan to come as Li An was being tempted to marry the General's outgoing and westernized daughter who had an affair with a common soldier and had an illegitimate child. Being a Christian, the family considered non-Christian marriages to be illegitimate. After awhile living with each other, Li An finally slept with Yinan because of confusion and the feeling that he wanted to grounded by family during the time of war's chaos but Yinan sleeps with Li An because she is in love with him. She loves the fact that Li An is externally heroic but internally a broken man almost like her. Whereas his relationship with Junan is sexually fulfilling and light, his relationship with Yinan has an easy depth to it because they are both broken people. While Junan is able to compartmentalize her feelings and hide it from her husband, Yinan feelings are open and all-encompassing. Li An and Yinan fell in love with each other. In Junan attempt to control the situation by pimping her sister to Li An, she discovers she could not control the outcome which was Li An and Yinan fell in love. The love that they had produced a son that scarred Junan with her inability to have one with Li An. Although Junan could forgive Li An and Yinan's indiscretion because it was her strategic plot in the first place, she could not forgive that they fell in love and had a love child.

Hu thinks that Junan's aloof exterior hid her obsessive thinking. Hu believes that the true value of life is through generous giving not having wealth in itself. Hu thinks Li An's has a thoughtless kindness because it does not take into account the intended effect on the target of such kindness. I think this is a cultural difference between Chinese and American kindness. Whereas American emotion is spontaneous, Chinese emotion tends to have a strategic quality built into it for effect. In turns out that Yao is like his father in that he is a charmer and spontaneously friendly.

During the Japanese occupation of China, food prices went up. This is the reason, war is always bad for commerce. In the places that the KMT controlled, corruption flourished thus putting them at a distinct advantage against the Japanese and later to the Communist because of the inefficiencies that it produced. Unfortunately, wartime causes family dislocation. The problem with a corrupt government is that it causes an opening for revolutionary government. Whereas An's opportunistic nature made him a good fit for the KMT cronyism, Bing's idealism to Chinese nationalism made him a good fit for revolutionary communism. Besides his purist ideology, Bing being picked on all his life made him susceptible to the communist ideal of equality for all. His ideology gets reinforced when he lives in the countryside and sees peoples backbreaking work that is making the Chinese mentality backwards. He sees communism as a way for people to be free of oppression and he likes that women have equal rights in a communist state. After Shanghai fell to the communist, it was Li Bing's turn to save Li Ang from a life of imprisonment. Bing is consumed with the ideology of communism.

Li Ang wanted to be reassigned to thhe front lines in order to forget the shame of sleeping with his sister-in-law. After the war, Li Ang was promoted to general and was charged with training the Nationalist army in Taiwan versus the Communists. Mao's dictatorial impulses can be seen when he decided to kill his own people to win at all cost.

I love the description of Li Ang's love for Yinan in that he constantly felt that there was something missing as though he had a phantom limb that is not there anymore but could still be felt.

In post-war Shanghai, the family was rich due to their mother's material no-how during the war and the father being a general in a kleptocratic society. They were able to send Hong and Hwa to private school.

Whereas Hong is like her aunt Yunan in her desire for reading fairy-tales and having flights of fancy, Hwa was like her mother whose anger protected a sensitive heart; thus she protected her mother fiercely. Hong is scarred that her passion might overtake her with unpredictable consequences like her mother's hidden passion for her father caused her to be strategic with pimping Yinan to her father and Yinan passion for her father breaking the family harmonious peace. Like Hwa and Junan, Hong does not want the unpredictability of passion but unlike her family members who sought to control their feelings she sought to channel her passion by forging ahead towards it. When Hong met Hu Ran in a Shanghai coffee shop, she was attracted to his manhood and thus decided to lose her virginity to him.

Hong and Hu Ran's relationship mirrored that of China between the haves and have nots. Whereas Hong's relationship with Pu Li was of a proprietary nature, her relationship with Hu was passionate. With Hu Ran, Hong felt that she could be an individual whereas with others she felt she was just a part of something else. While Junan impressed upon her daughters that materialism was the only way for them to keep power, Hong was more interested in the power of love and her ambition as a writer. Unfortunately, Hong's family were Nationalist but Hu Ran is part of the communist underground. Although Hong always felt theri souls would forever be intertwined, she realized that they are materially different. Initially, Hong wanted to stay with Hu Ran in defiance of he mother's wishes but after Li Ang decided to stay with Yinan in mainland China, she could not bear to abandon her mother in her moment of need.

In Taiwan, Junan wanted Hong to have an abortion to save face for the arranged marriage to the Pus but Hong did not want her daughter, Mudan, to be aborted. Meanwhile, Hu Ran died trying to get to Taiwan. Junan was able to make money off of antics from mainland China. With her jewelry, Junan is telling Hong to start over in a place of her choosing so Mudan will not be trapped by the prison of their circumstance. An opportunity for a scholarship in America allowed Hong to go to university there. Meanwhile, Hwa not wanting to be under the influence of any man never told Wang how she felt about him thus losing him to an arranged marriage. Their mother's response was it was good for Hwa so she knows that men are interchangeable in which individual love does not matter just the duty to provide matters. While Hong advice Hwa to go abroad and challenge herself intellectually with something new, she took their mother's advice and married Pu Li instead. It is clear that it was an arrange marriage of convenience.

Now living in America, Hong realizes that her daughters would not understand their mother's dilemma of having to compromise (for love or ambition) that seems to be a birthright of every American. It turns out that Hong moved to NYC and worked with new immigrants in getting accustomed to their new country. She brought Mudan so she could press the reset button. Mudan eventually became a lawyer with a passion for justice. Eventually, Hong got married to a fellow immigrant Tom Marquez and they had a daughter together name Evita Junan. Tom who grew up fatherless understood Mudan.

After many years, Hong searched for the past which led to the happy homecoming with Yao, Yinan, and Li Ang

Meanwhile, Hwa moved with her Stanford educated husband to Palo Alto where he became a respected head of a software division and devoted and loving husband. Hwa set to erase the past by becoming totally Americanized with clarity and order becoming all consuming. Hwa regrets being her mother's daughter and following her advice until Junan's death.

Junan made a customed home in Palo Alto and still wished for the death of Yinan and Li Ang. While Hu Mudan thinks people should forgive past sins, Junan does not forgive and forget. Even her daughter Hong has become the enemy for contacting Li Ang and Yinan. She prayed never to change and be resolute in her decisions so she died a shrew.

Whereas those who emigrated to the United States grew content with their lives, the family members who remained in communist China aged beyond their years especially Yao who although still optimistic in temperament blames his father for his fate in the cultural revolution "re-education" program. Yinan died of leukemia after working in a place with low environmental standards where chemicals were rampant.

[Jan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spanning 7 decades, the story of sisters, Yinan and Junan, is fraught with political chaos, social up-heaval and the tenuous hold of love. In 1931, the sisters are abandoned after their mother's suicide and promise to always love one another. Junan enters into an arranged marriage with a soldier and worries her somewhat backward sister will forever be alone. When Junan and her husband are separated due to Japan invading China, Junan makes the fateful decision to send Yinan to him so he is not alone. The story is narrated by Junan's daughter, Wong, who grows up believing she has always disappointed her mother in all ways. Betrayal is a feeling almost as strong as love.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spanning 4 generations of a Chinese family, beginning before World War II in China and ending in present in the United States, this work is about mother/daughter relationships. A real strength of the work is the understanding one gains of the culture of the family, in particular those traditions which are foreign to our way of thinking: the power of the male and in particular the need for a male child. Although the women in this narrative are all smart and strong, their backs are broken because of this particular burden. It is their responsibility to bear a male child; it is their failure when a girl is born (forget the reality of genetics and that the sperm determines the sex of the child). The story begins with a suicide, one which echoes down the generations of this family of women. In their pursuit of sons, men often take second wifes and/or concubines. As one can imagine, this does not make for a happy household---and how much more divisive if the concubine is one's sister.

[chucklesthescot · Rating 1 out of 5]

Junan and Yinan are sisters who swear always to be there for each other after their mother dies, until the night their father loses Junan in a gambling game to pay off his debts. Junan, in spite of her promises does fall in love with Li Ang, a soldier who is fighting the invading Japanese forces. This story follows the sisters and their family during a time of fear for everyone in China.
This was too much chick-lit for my liking and these family epic books never hold my interest for long. I didn't particularly like Junan-the way she treated her sister and the servants, and I didn't have much interest in finishing the book. Those with more patience will probably get on fine with this book but it just wasn't my thing.

[Marley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this book up from the library because it sounded interesting. I love to read historical fiction, but I found this story to be somewhat dry and hard to follow. I really had to focus to keep track of the story line and characters.

[Misha · Rating 4 out of 5]

INHERITANCE: NOTES

Questions:
• Why does the narrator say that her family story is “like a stone”?
• Hong says that all children are born into the middle of their family’s stories. How important is it for us to discover the whole story? Do we need it to know who we are?
• Why does Junan send Yinan to her husband?
• What is Hong’s relationship with her mother and father?
• How is the concept of love and passion developed and passed down between the women of the family? Does it change with the generations?
• What do fairytales represent in the novel? For Yinan and Hong?


Prologue: Hangzhou, 1925
• Chanyi, 35, goes to see fortune-teller with 2 young daughters, Junan and Yinan (13)
• Junan: “My mother maintained the cool poise that she would have throughout her life. As usual, she kept her questions to herself.” (13)
• Yinan fearful of many things (14)
• Fortuneteller says that Junan will marry a soldier, that Chanyi will not bear a son (16, 18)
• Chanyi drowns

Hangzhou, 1930-31
• “My family story is like a stone. I often think about its true dimensions, weight, and shape. Many years ago, it was pitched into deep water, pulling after it a spout of air, leaving only ripples.” (23)
• “Bad luck struck us long before my grandmother’s death by drowning.” (23)
• Hu Mudan (23-6)
• “Two more different sisters could not have been imagined….And yet, with all their differences, the sisters loved each other with a ferocity that soothed Hu Mudan.” (27)
• Hu Mudan gives into hunger, lust (30-31)
• Li Ang, soldier Junan lets in (34-5), Li Ang and Junan to marry (42)
• Old Chan at wedding banquet: “So, boy, perhaps in order to increase your professional acumen you might want to know who the Communists are and what they want. It’s simple. The Communists are hungry men. They’re poor men who want our money. They’re men without business and property who resent those of us who have them. That’s all they are, and no doctrine or claim they make will ever change that.” (51)
• Li Ang sees Yinan reading in her room on his wedding night (54)

Hangzhou, 1931-1937
• Hu Mudan gives birth to son, will not tell of father (58)
• Junan finds box of candies from admirer in Yinan’s room (59)
• Junan on marriage: “She clung to this advantage: that marrying Li Ang had made her safe, that his family was of such low stature it would be impossible for her to truly fall in love with him. This would save her from the fate that had overcome her mother. No, she would be careful. She knew how dangerous it was to get overly attached, how treacherous it might be if she grew to want devotion from the man she married.” (63)
• Yinan asks her about sexual love (69)
• “Meanwhile, my mother’s limp and sleeping body held a secret: in this moment of weakness I had been conceived.” (74)
• Hong: “Like all children, I was born into the middle of the story I didn’t know, and I was raised to be unknowing, tranquil in its center. But glimpses of the story reached my eyes.” (78)
• Yinan still waiting to marry, growing a little odd (81)
• What if the Japanese came—Yinan would learn to live with them, Juan would poison them (85)
• Japanese invasion (89)
• Hong sees Hu Ran unclothes, Hu Mulan and son sent away (91-92)
• Junan finds papers in her father’s study, that their house and property owed to Charlie Kong if she does not bear an heir (101)
• Junan sends Yinan to her husband: “For a moment Junan wished to call her back, but she found that she had lost her ability to speak. She reassured herself: Now, at least, I know what will happen. It will be under my control.” (108)

Chongqing, 1938-40
• Li Ang arrests his brother, Li Bing, discovers that he is a Communist (113)
• General Hsiao (119)
• Yinan arrives (133)
• Li Ang tries to send Yinan back, but Junan won’t hear of it (143)
• Li Ang & Yinan make love: “But then, when he tried to recall what happened next, he felt that he had been drawn into the silent world of a dream, as deep and smooth and all-encompassing as water. No sound, no comprehension, only water.” (145)
• Yinan realizes that she has betrayed her sister, that she cannot love her now (149)

Chongqing, 1940
• Hu Mudan on Li Ang: “Oh, he was generous to women, and often kind, but his kindness was the worst sort, based as it was on thoughtlessness rather than calculation or even lust.” (159)
• Hu Mudan visits Yinan, sees that she is pregnant (166)
• “Later my mother cautioned me against reading too many fairy tales. She said they were like opium and I would grow up into a useless woman.” (169)—Does Junan say this in light of her sister, or that Li Ang gave their daughter a book Yinan loved?
• Hu Ran (171)
• Pu Li (177)
• Yinan gives birth to a boy (179)

Shanghai, 1946-49
• Hwa, violent heart, fierce like her mother (180): “So Haw’s defensiveness ran in her blood, as did her desire for answers, her cool poise, her hesitance to trust.” (181)
• “My mother once warned me not to be too proud of how much I could see. I believe it wasn’t pride but righteous curiosity that made me strive to notice things. Curiosity mingled with a need to uncover what flowed beneath our household calm, a hidden source of pain that wasn’t mentioned.” (182)
• Yao, Yinan’s son, Hong’s brother/cousin (183)
• Junan: “You’ll be a striking woman, not a classical beauty. You’ve inherited too mixed a combination of our features.” (185)
• Fairy tales: “I had come to understand that there was a passion in the darkness. I knew that as a woman I would fall into that darkness.” (186)
• Fate (186)
• PASSION: “It was our bodies, I knew, that brought us to such a desperate place. Passion and desire, the dark tug at our feet. Passion had put my mother in my father’s power. Passion had conquered Yinan, caused her to succumb and to betray us all. Passion had taken my father, though I couldn’t bear to think of it. It was beyond my control.” (186)
• Meets Hu Ran (189): “I did not want to go home. I didn’t want to see my mother’s starved face and stony eyes when I felt so powerful, so alive.” (192)
• Hwa, says she will never love: “I don’t want to be under anyone’s power.” (193)
• Hong: “If I kept hold of my own power, then no one could ever hurt me.” (193)
• Hong asks then makes Hu Ran make love to her: “Through this chaos, I followed those who’d gone ahead of me: my grandmother, my mother, my father, and Yinan. I followed them hoping to belong inside the world they had made.” (194-5)
• Yinan tells Li Ang that she loves him that she cannot live with her sister and his family again (197)
• Li Ang, bombing of bridge: “He understood that there was nothing lucky about him. There had never been. He would survive to old age, and he would remember everything that he had ever done.” (202)
• After war with Japanese, one begins within China with the Communists (205)
• Li Ang arrested (213)
• “In the space of an hour, I pushed us recklessly beyond the borders of friendship, decency, and class.” (215)
• Hu Ran & Hong—his poverty, her privilege: “I didn’t know it at the time, but we were mirroring the struggle all around us. It was the country’s struggle living through our actions and our words.” (215)
• “Since childhood, I had assumed that he and I would find each other. Even when we were apart, I had assumed we had a life together, perhaps imaginary, but always existing, always constant. But now that our meetings were dependent on desire, I saw more clearly everything we didn’t share. …But even as his body came together with mine, even as I tried to hurt my mother with each act as I did, I heard an echo of her voice, telling me that what Hu Ran and I shared was nothing.” (217)
• Hu Ran discovers that Hong’s father has been captured in Shanghai (218)
• Hong meets her uncle again (220)
• Li Ang decides to stay in China with Yinan, and Hong realizes she cannot stay with Hu Ran, cannot part from her mother (229)
• Hong pregnant, Hu Ran dead (234-6)
• “It was, always, my mother’s story. It flowed ever and around our house; it was our atmosphere, our air.” (239)
• Junan gives Hong pearls (241), Hong leaves for San Francisco (247)

New York and Palo Alto, 1989-93
• Hong’s new life, NYC, Mudan, Tom and another daughter, Evita Junan (254-5)
• Hu Mudan (256)
• Hong returns to China (266)
• Yinan ill (282-3)
• Li Ang and Junan meet again, but Juan refuses to speak again with her sister, heal the rift (287-91)
• Junan ill, Hong visits her bedside—realizes she never fully knew or understood her mother (296)
• “dark and necessary ritual of forgiveness” (299)
• “She had taught us that the most powerful love is founded on possession. She kept us secure throughout the terrible war and through the tumult after. In return, she asked only that we be absolutely loyal. How is it possible to obey the contract for such love? One by one, we had all disappointed her. Chanyi left her, Yinan had betrayed her, my father had proven himself to be a mere man. Hwa had withheld a secret, and I had brought her shame. We had all failed to love her in the way she wanted to be loved.” (302)

[Ming · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t know why I didn’t pick up this book earlier. But I am so glad that I found and read it. It is beautifully written. And the story is compelling. (For what it’s worth, this is a refreshing take on pre-communist China; and the mother-daughter and the sister-sister dynamics are innovative here. eh-hem)

Here are some of my favorite quotes:

…Behind his silver spectacles, his eyes were watery in mild; he smelled healthy. Li Ang couldn't detect a gambler in him from his manners or his old well-furnished house. But when Wang began to mix the tiles, Li Ang understood. The tiles clicked at a thrilling pace with absolute precision and yet wings movements worked against this rhythmic exactitude. They were mystical and frantic: back bent, elbows wide, hand somehow dramatic. His fingers moved over and around the tiles, caressing them like prayer beads. Watching and listening, Li Ang knew that Wang was in the grip of a compulsion: he believed in magical thinking as a way to hold off some hidden pain…
She who’d known my mother since infancy could see much more. She saw, beneath the cool ivory features, the same possessiveness that had been Chanyi’s downfall. She saw it in each thing my mother did. The meticulous, fine mending and special meals, the personal trip south of the city to wrangle precious, first-crop leaves of his favorite tea, the fierce sounds of lovemaking from their room at night—all of these betrayed her. My mother claimed these tasks were performed out of duty. But duty implied a repetitive dullness, avoid, a sense of merely keeping up the quotidian requirements of her role. In reality, I believe, my mother's duties were performed as acts of magic. She spent her energy weaving spells, making invisible strands of comfort inhabit designed to keep my father hurrying home to her.

…the woman has smiled faintly and said something about Junan sending someone to keep watch over him. The idea was, of course, ridiculous but in the weeks after Yinan's arrival he felt an impulse to hide himself. Her eyes were to clear. It was as if this sister, sitting in her room had the ability to see through the walls. He wasn't worried that she might tell tales about his activities. He was more afraid of what she might see inside of him. She would note the pattern of his days and know that they meant nothing. She would see that he it was lost.

… Clearly, she missed her sister, but there was something wistful and charged in the way that she looked out the window—some other emotion in her face that he could almost define. He, too, had felt it when he left Junan—a feeling similar to loneliness, yet similar to freedom.

I took a pearl between my fingers. It was a lustrous silver-white, smooth, a violation hidden in a glowing shell.

[Emily Branson · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a beautiful story - this book captures the feeling of growing up and realizing your life began in the middle of your family’s lives. The interwoven stories and characters parallel real life family dynamics and create a sense of nostalgia for the lives of family that came before us. Plus, I’ve never learned about WW2 through a Chinese perspective!

[Cyber Dot · Rating 4 out of 5]

A love story. A family story. A war story. Plot lines which depend on loyalty and fate.

There were some key moments in the dialogue when it would have been helpful to have clarity about who was speaking.

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book about love and the inability to forgive. Love historical details about China.This is a bittersweet novel and I will probably not read anything else for a couple of days. Sometimes we have to live with the consequences of our actions.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very few novels have the power to deeply transform the reader. Many books can spark your imagination or provide a new insight on something, but rarely is the reader profoundly affected by the words on the page. Inheritance happens to be one of these exceptional novels with the power to change the reader.

After finishing Inheritance, I am forced to reflect inward on my own family situation; one that is just as imperfect as the Wang/Li family. Broken families are common, but finding a way to fix or heal them is uncommon. I know I struggle with the betrayals and fractured relationships of my family, particularly those of my parents and extended family. Inheritance has forced me to confront my own family history, a history that I often bury deep within myself and ignore. No one wants to contemplate bad experiences, let alone grapple with them and try to find a solution for them. It is much easier to ignore them.

Inheritance details the Wang/Li family over four generations, beginning with Chanyi and her two daughters Junan and Yinan. Cultural expectations of producing a male heir proved too overwhelming for Chanyi, and she commits suicide over the thought that her husband might take a concubine in order to get a son. This opening tragedy sets the mood for Inheritance, one of hope and despair, remembering and forgetting, traditions and new beginnings.

Each part of the story is told in first person through the various generations, and it switches between the characters to whoever has the most insight to give on the current storyline. Sometimes this means jumping from grandparent to grandchild, and if you aren't paying close enough attention, it can be a little confusing. What is amazing is how Chang manages to keep the different tones of the voices consistent, as well as the mood for the generation they come from. Junan and Li Ang come from the Chinese revolution, and their words carry a loss of identity and strife. Hong and Hwa become immigrants in America, and their voices embody the weight of expectation and abandonment.

I highly recommend Inheritance to anyone interested in China, family, traditions, or who are simply looking for a book that will imbibe meaningful reflection upon one's self. This dynamic novel is one of the best generational novels I have ever read, and I am glad for the random happenstance that allowed me to pick Inheritance up.

[Chris Xu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love most of Sam's short story collection Hunger but for the last one pipa's story. Now it goes the same with this debut novel. I couldnt appreciate stories of historical theme/set in old china from chinese american writers. They reads identical(for me). Just like eating your first sushi and the second one is always not as tasty. I believe her talents are better manifested in her other stories centered on Chinese diaspora in America. Writing historical themes is more like a research which must have benefited herself tremendously, but I think Sam, as well as other Chinese American writers, should really be more focused on Chinese American experiences. I grew up in Shanghai and I know the original love story about hangzhou's west lake and the "Thunder Peak Pagoda", which Sam phrased at the very beginning of this novel. It is certainly a loyal, careful translation but I just feel a bit awkward to encounter this within a different context in English. By the way I also think Chinese have once used this "pagoda" for propagandistic purpose. Anyways maybe I will enjoy this novel later, and I sincerely wish Sam good!

[Meghana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm strangely fascinated with Chinese history, and I generally find family sagas compelling. I had never heard of Lan Samantha Chang, but I'm glad I picked this book on a whim; it didn't disappoint.

Set in the backdrop of political unrest and spanning three generations, Inheritance details the struggle between love and hate in a time of turmoil. Chang's characters are beautifully constructed, particularly the author's mother, Junan, who I could relate to entirely too well.

Despite the memorable characters, however, Chang sometimes loses momentum in plot and storyline. She also fails to provide satisfying and sufficient backstories for all her characters, like the family servant, Hu Mudan. The last chapter is one long, rather unsatisfying monologue, and I did not feel I got closure as a reader.

Overall, I think I prefer Jung Chang's Wild Swans, which is strikingly similar in structure but far more compelling. But Inheritance is definitely worth a read, for its lyrical prose, historical parallels, and the characters that stay with you long after you turn the last page.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did not go in expecting to like this book. I often find immigrant fiction maudlin and stifling in its disappointment with America or its overwhelming optimism toward American culture.

So I was very surprised to find myself so captivated by Chang’s story (non-autobiographical). She writes with clarity, detail and poignancy. She informs the reader of the political climate of China during the war and Communist revolution without being preachy and mostly without taking sides. She sets up no expectations for her reader that coming to America will solve any problems, let alone all of them. Her characters, however, feel that optimism to a certain extent.

Her prose is gorgeous. Her characters are beautifully developed . . . overall it’s just so mesmerizing that I’ve even sent it along to my sisters as something worth reading.

[Marlaina McCauslin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have read a great deal of these types of books, and I found this book calling for me. An Inheritance? with a female asian on the cover? Something different than the status quo for historical fiction about Chinese pre-revoluntary woman? Nope. Same as old as time, once again we deal with a family that has 2 daughters, one of which is the perfect one and the other one is kind of odd, wants to learn and never to marry. Hey what about the father being a drunk/gambler and mother unhappy? Well this story got that also. Here's an added bonus, I read about a 100 pages in, and i couldn't find a single orginial conflict. Infact, it didnt' even seem like there was a conflict to begin with. However, this isn't a story about conflict resolution, its just a simple story that failed to grabbed this readers attention.

[Genevieve · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm usually allergic to Family Sagas, but I liked this one. The writing is crisp, lyric and evocative without being overwrought, and I found the characters very compelling. Although the story unfolds in tandem with historical events––the crisis point of the family narrative is entangled with the crisis of World War II––the history never overwhelms the tale-telling. It never becomes a demonstration of What It Was Like to live through historical era x. This was a book that I sped through, eager to know the fates of the characters; that in itself is a recommendation. I'm not giving it four stars because a few pivots of the plot had a tinge of artificiality that bothered me--perhaps done intentionally, for the structure of tragic symmetry.

[Sha · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a very engaging novel with interesting plot twists and carefully constructed characters. I felt connected to the characters and the author successfully managed to allow readers to empathise. The author's precise and believable writing brought out China's past impeccably. Her vivid description of the dire situations the Chinese were subjected to made the book a more interesting read as readers are further exposed to exquisite Chinese culture and tradition. This book was definitely a page turner, I found it very hard to actually put it down and ended up reading it while in the car (not me at the wheel though of course!) I'd recommend it to anyone who loves family dramas and everything in relation to it :)

[Pauline · Rating 4 out of 5]

As usual I loved the historical content of the book which was brilliantly intertwiined with the story of a wealthy Chinese family spread over seven generations. It is set prior to the Japanese occupation through to the establishment of the Communist era.The story is told in an understated way making it,s impact even greater.We get a wonderful insight into the workings of the Chinese mind which enables us to relate to the characters in a sympathetic way. The tension between the well drawn characters and the events taking place is maintained throughout the novel.
The language is lyrical and consistent . The author Lam Samantha Chang is a master of the written word and this for me made the book a joy to read.I look forward to reading more of her novels.
Definitely read this book!

[TinHouseBooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meg Storey (Editor, Tin House Books): In preparation for a panel I will moderate at the Tin House Summer Writer’s Workshop, I am reading Lan Samantha Chang’s first novel, Inheritance. While my reading could be considered “homework,” it’s homework that I don’t want to put down. The story of Junan and her younger sister, Yinan, opens in pre-revolution, 1930s China, as their mother, who has not borne her husband a son and worries he will take another wife, commits suicide. Chang’s quiet yet vivid prose beautifully depicts not only a time and setting I knew little about but also the characters and the conflicts and challenges they face, particularly the female characters, as their country changes.

[Marvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given that the author is the new director of the Iowa Writers Workshop, I was surprised that the story was told from only one perspective, much of it in third person, in strictly chronological order--nothing cutting edge about the style. And it's a familiar formula that follows 3 generations of women & the relationships between mothers & daughters & the women & their men. But it is a very compelling story set mostly in the years leading up to China's Communist Revolution. Once again I wonder why there are so many good books set during the Chinese Revolution & none that I've found set during the Cuban Revolution.

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting novel, set during the Sino-Japanese War and second Chinese Civil war, but I think that I found the setting more interesting than the plot. The characters all seemed like caricatures to me, and the author jumped back and forth between the first and third person, which I deeply dislike. Toward the end of the novel, the first person even starts slipping into the third person sections, so that the narrator is technically narrating all of it. I didn't like that device at all. I found myself reading a large chunk of the book and then putting it down for another week or so before I could be bothered to continue.

[Walter · Rating 4 out of 5]

"My mother and my aunt had always been close, and even in their betrayal they drew together in a way that left out everyone else. The betrayal had made a phantom sister that could not be replaced by any other person. Through the years, they were unable to exorcise this ghost" (p. 293). Lan Samantha Chang introduces this wonderfully complex and compelling new type of ghost. I hope that she continues to explore it....

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Through the lives of several generations the reader learns about the political turmoil and the cultural changes in China after the fall of the last dynasty. The story focuses on two sisters who end up loving the same man. One sister believes in the practicality of arranged marriages and shapes her life around becoming a respectable woman and wife, while the other sister believes in romance and fairy tale endings. The story is full of emotion, provides insight to cultural issues, and show the uncertainty people faced during the struggle between the Nationalists and the Communists.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

liked this much more than i thought i would upon starting. happily avoids annoying writing or amy tan cliche territory. chang's writing is subtle and complex without struggling to appear so. in fact, her writing is disarmingly easy to read, drawing you in. even though she plays around with point of view and the book had great flow. she did that show dont tell thing in terms of story beautifully while being relatively clear (my head wasn't even completely in the game) about the historical context and events.

[Flora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes it seems that all Chinese sagas are the same: generations of misery, mixed with some hoodoo that is difficult for modern American readers to comprehend. What makes Inheritance stand out? Character. Lan Samantha Chang really puts the reader in her heroines' shoes. You truly feel the conflict, the betrayal, the confusion, the undeniable love, the acceptance of fate. She writes without bullshit. In this genre, it doesn't get much better than that.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about two sisters in China, beginning when they are young girls in the 1930s, and ending in the present. I found it intriguing but sad - the family is dysfunctional over the course of generations and I found that heart-rending, despite the fact that it ended relatively neatly. It's quite well-written, and had the bonus side effect of informing me about the rise of Communism in China. I didn't previously know much about 20th century Chinese history.