My Old Home: A Novel of Exile

by Orville Schell

A uniquely experienced observer of China gives us a sweeping historical novel that takes us on a journey from the rise of Mao Zedong in 1949 to the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989, as a father and his son are swept away by a relentless series of devastating events.
 
It’s 1950, and pianist Li Tongshu is one of the few Chinese to have graduated from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Engaged to a Chinese-American violinist who is the daughter of a missionary father and a Shanghai-born mother, Li Tongshu is drawn not just by Mao’s grand promise to “build a new China” but also by the enthusiasm of many other Chinese artists and scientists living abroad, who take hope in Mao’s promise of a rejuvenated China. And so when the recently established Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing offers Li Tongshu a teaching position, he leaves San Francisco and returns home with his new wife.
 
But instead of being allowed to teach, Li Tongshu is plunged into Mao’s manic revolution, which becomes deeply distrustful of his Western education and his American wife. It’s not long before his son, Little Li, also gets caught up in the maelstrom of political and ideological upheaval that ends up not only savaging the Li family but, ultimately, destroying the essential fabric of Chinese society.

Genres: Fiction, China, Historical Fiction, Historical

591 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 9, 2021

About the author

Orville Schell is the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society in New York. He is a former professor and Dean at the University of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Schell was born in New York City, graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard University in Far Eastern History, was an exchange student at National Taiwan University in the 1960s, and earned a Ph.D. (Abd) at University of California, Berkeley in Chinese History. He worked for the Ford Foundation in Indonesia, covered the war in Indochina as a journalist, and has traveled widely in China since the mid-70s.

Reviews

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was not a fast book to read or a fun book to read. It was generally well written and I enjoyed the many references to both Chinese literature and classical music. I feel a better understanding for what has happened to China over the time period covered. I was interested in the story and wanted to finish the book. I appreciated the hard work it took to write it and the insights shared.

[Valarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a wonderful book. The writing was beautiful. Although there wasn't a lot of suspense I just wanted to keep reading. Something just kept pushing me along. I almost felt like it was non-fiction at times, but in a good way because it was just so believable and real.

[Dickie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It pains me to give this 2 stars as I've always enjoyed Schell's nonfiction books and articles. While this sweeping novel captures the succession of reform and anti rightist campaigns from the early '50s til June 4; I found the characters rote caricatures and their thoughts and dialogue jarringly wooden and unconvincing.

[☀️Carden☀️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s not too much stuff I didn’t like in this book. I know it would be just four stars, as in I enjoyed it. However, the length of the novel is kind of long, so I will have to put this down and get back to it another time.

The mix of politics doesn’t weigh down the narrative, as it is balanced with characters and some historical fiction. I have other books I need to get too though, so this one will have to wait for when I feel like getting back to it.

[Ernie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title recalled the homeland concept in German but our Euro-centric culture did not lead me to consider that this was also the site of a famous and ancient Chinese story. Schell was a professor of journalism with that special life-long interest in China that American used to call ‘old China hand’ in the pre and post world war II days when the US government had more expertise to call on for advice on matters Chinese. He writes with intimate knowledge of the period of turmoil in China from the revolution of 1947 to the reactionary time of 1989 and the tragedy of the Beijing Tiananmen Square massacre as the world watched. I have been interested in China since first studying its history as an undergraduate in 1960 and this is a rare novel set in that period with historical accuracy and so I fully recommend it to you.

Schell’s other interest and knowledge shown here is in the music of J S Bach and I also share that interest and love. As he writes, it rang very true to me to see Bach’s music such as the Goldberg variations for piano and the beautiful late cantatas as the saviours of his characters’ sanity during the several political re-educations and the cultural revolution that father and son suffered. Li Tongshu was a professor of piano at the Beijing Conservatorium and was persuaded to return from San Francisco ‘to help build the new China’ in 1949. In Beijing he lived with his son Little Li and American wife in one of the traditional huang courtyard houses sharing with Granny Wu and using the communal stinking lavatories down the lane. In walking distance were the central government buildings and the great square that Chairman Mao had expanded to hold his celebration parades and which bore his huge portrait on the wall of the ancient palace gardens. Schell comments that China is a nation of walls and files that follow each person all their life.

Schell opens his stories with the drama of the Cultural Revolution before writing the back story of the father. In 1960, since the 1953 Korean War, the USA had become the enemy and after his wife had returned to America to visit her dying father, she was denied a US passport to return to China and Li’s old passport was no longer valid to return to the USA. Their son Little Li was then brought up by their neighbour Granny Wang when his father was sent to the countryside for re-education after the failure of Mao’s Great Leap Forward campaign. In the the resultant famine, his father returns unrecognisable but retains his Conservatorium job with reduced conditions. He steeps the boy in the music of Bach whereby he gains admission to the Conservatorium as a flautist until the cultural revolution of 1966 destroys his father’s hands as a result of a young zealot trying to be redder than the others and both father and son are sent separately to distant rural labour camps. The father’s location is not known to the son for years.

Schell follows the son’s story in tiny Yak Springs in the border country of Tibet where he works, mostly alone in a quarry to chip gravel for road repairs. When his flute playing on the wide treeless plains to an audience of snowy mountains is secretly heard by a Tibetan, he is drawn nearer to their life in their Yak tent village. Later he jokes that the Tibetans with their secret Dalai Lama Buddhism were probably more interested in the silver of his flute than his playing but his memorised Bach sustains him, supplemented with improvisations on the propaganda songs that had been forced upon every child in school. This unusual exile lasts nearly ten years until Little Li is nearly 30 with an atypically strong body for a flautist.

Schell ameliorates the romanticism of the above events which read like an heroic overcoming of overwhelming difficulties to become free and successful, by varying the chronological order of relating the stories of father and son and filtering the son’s story with a satirical account of the power struggles in Yak Springs which culminate, in scenes reminiscent of Gogol’s Government Inspector when the dilapidated village is hastily renovated for a visit from American mountain climbers following Nixon’s rapprochement with Mao. The Peoples Daily pages had been edited of all photographs of Mao or textual references to him before being ‘transubstantiated’ into toilet paper for use in the open pit communal toilets which also fed the pigs below a raised platform and grill. Schell also delights in the scatological nature of the Chinese languages. Students in Australia are always surprised when wanting to learn our swear words and metaphorical insults to find that there are so few.



Little Li has kept his English skills hidden all this time and astounds both the Americans and their minders. His silence also highlighted his concern for dealing with his ‘mongrel’ appearance. A binding motif in the narrative is Little Li’s total ignorance of sex and his rare encounters with females. ‘Of a all the counterrevolutionary forces, surely sexual attraction was the most subversive.’ Schell tells two stories that are China’s story. Little Li’s striving for sexual maturity and a stable relationship with a woman is likened to the great inner and outer struggles that every Chinese person had to survive during their lifetimes in which the personal was always the political.

Schell has too much to relate in one long book and what should have been two novels, stretches the stories to Little Li’s partial rehabilitation and his attendance at the same music college that his father attended in San Francisco where he feels ‘the absence of denial’ of his Chinese communist life and suffers from the sexual freedoms he suddenly finds in that city. The comparisons that Schell makes with social norms in the USA and Li’s naive attempts to fit in there lost my interest because they paled into insignificance when he returns to Bejing in 1987 where he is swept away by the masses of students attempting to reform a shocked authoritarian government and that government’s ruthless suppression of them. Schell’s description of these events is indeed memorable for the personal points of view he adopts with the two life-long friends Little Li and Little Wang.

[Joshua Pulsifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is drenched in Cultural Revolution/anti-CCP melodrama that reminded me of why I don’t often read pieces of historical fiction from the periods Schell writes in anymore. Whole thing just comes off as so worn in 2021 - even borderline propagandistic. The severity of the tragedy faced by Little Li is at times (almost comically) exaggerated and without nuance. There were a few funny moments and redeemable characters sprinkled throughout, but overall the book at nearly 600 pages left me feeling both gorged and unsatisfied.

[Sylvia · Rating 5 out of 5]

i know Orville Schell's non-fiction books, which are wonderful, but because I read a review that really panned rhis book I almost didn't read it. But a friend loved it so I decided to give it a try. I went for an Audible version and loved this book. I'm sure Schell was able to describe happenings in China starting with the rise of Mao that I'm sure would have otherwise been difficult to document, but from what I heard growing up from my parents and their friends who visited America it's accurate.
I also like that was saw the growth and trials of a young man growing up during these years of dramatic change and thought that he and the people he encountered were believeable.

I'm very glad I've read this book, because recently I've met and become friends with people who also live through this period one who grew up largely in Tibet, where her family was sent to farm and be reformed. In fact she was home schooled, was admitted to one of China's best univesity and believe it or not eventually became a successful banker in Deng Xiao Ping's China.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel will not be for everyone, but it was a wonderful read for me. I spent many years studying Chinese history, politics, literature, and language. I lived in China during a time that is portrayed near the end of Dr. Schell's book, a time of growing openness and change, but before the Tiananmen protests. When I've returned to China more recently, it can be easy to forget how much trauma people experienced not all that long ago.

There is so much about this novel that resonated with my studies and my lived experiences. Yet even if you know nothing about China, it is a worthy historical read to immerse oneself into a portrait of a society that turned on itself. Schell shows the ability of political leaders to wreak havoc and destruction on communities, work units, families, and individuals...in the name of retaining power.

[Mimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A favorite and want to re-read it.
Set in China in the early 60s and continuing past the Cultural Revolution up to the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident. Story of a young boy and his western-educated intellectual parents, their lives profoundly affected by Mao’s policies.
Orville Schell has written numerous non-fiction books on Chinese history and geopolitics, and I was pleasantly surprised at this work of fiction by him. He has the knowledge and understanding of those decades of Chinese history and was able to write a wonderful poignant story set against that backdrop.

[Lynn P · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned a great deal from Schell’s book and enjoyed the descriptions of what Beijing was like during the Cultural Revolution. The conflicts in government, conflicts of the people and their conscience all seemed real. The personal stories of love, camaraderie, courage, and struggle all seemed real and not over dramatic. I loved how the love of music was intertwined and was a guide for Little Li and his father. For this being his first novel, I say BRAVO.

[Leslie Conner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Orville Schell writes a deeply moving story melding each of the main characters personal experiences and accounts of China under communist rule. It evolves into an incredible and descriptive story with historical accounts and informative insights. This story’s well developed, engaging plot, descriptive father and son characters included multiple locations and political situations of this vast country. You’ll want to read it to the end.

[Timothy Haggerty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tragic and personal view of China in transition

This is a long but absorbing tale that places the reader in the life of a young man from Beijing. The author gives us a window into the lives Little Li and his father Big Li and the tragic evolution of China from the 50s to Tienneman Square.
Well written, grpping narrative.

[Isaac Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

An intense and gripping read. The reader gets sucked in to experience the full range of emotions and dilemmas Little Li faces - even as one struggles to understand him (and there is no shortage of frustration there). Overall, a thought-provoking (fictional) window into revolutionary China through the eyes of a lived experience.

[Jean H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beauty and pain

It was inspiring, with humor as well as fascinating details about the Goloks. The ending was perfect. For those who feel drawn to the Tibetan people and the nightmare of Chinese domination .

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the characters and storyline. The writing and dialogue are very expository. The dialogue is stilted and unnatural. There are grammar and usage errors in the writing. I enjoyed the story despite this, and got some insights into modern Chinese history.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

Traces the arc of Little Li Wende and his family from Mao’s Great Leap Forward. He shows how severe trauma can affect one throughout one’s life. I really liked this book, recommended by James Fallows, for how effectively it puts you in China during a time when it was closed to the outside world.

[Jayme · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book more. It started out really promising. In fact, I did like quite a lot of it, but I didn’t end up liking the main character. Don’t want to give spoilers, but I was disappointed.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, what a story! I love it because nothing is sugar-coated!

[Everett · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a moving story that is eloquently written. It is a must read for anyone who has an interest in China.

[Vontel]

I haven't read any books by this author previously, and his list of books about China appears quite interesting.

[Lee Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Historical fiction of red China. Good read.

[Hans Sandberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great story that gives the reader a good sense of China 1949-1989. As a novel, it is well written, but rather shallow.

[Bonniebakula · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous book about life in China!

[Kaye Acosta · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s long but I liked it a lot. If you want to learn more about Chinese history from the 1950s to the 1980s with excellent writing and characterization then this is the book for you.

[Glory · Rating 1 out of 5]

At the beginning of this book, I enjoyed learning about a culture other than my own. But in the end, it was a dread to read.

[Doni · Rating 5 out of 5]

GOAT.

[Jocelyn Zhu · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written novel ranging from 1949 to 1989. It's a good novel if you wish to know more about China for sure. A struggle and suffering from the Li family ever since the US-trained musician father (Old Li) was drawn back to his motherland by Mao's promise to build a new China. Little Li's diaspora is so strong to a point that he is not in the current moment, always somewhere else. This is a bit irritating. I get that if the author wishes to put so many historical events on one person to witness it all. I do! But a person who escaped to the US due to the unfair treatment in the cultural revolution also caught up in Tian'anmen Square on that fateful day? Come on. If this is not trying too hard, I don't know what it is.

[Emmie Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although it is technically fiction, this book was such an interesting dive into what China was like during the communist period of Mao. Each character represented a different common opinion of the period and played a huge role in the reader's understanding of what the social and cultural significance surrounding the county was like.