THE BINDING CHAIR by Kathryn Harrison

This book has been on my list for some time, so when I found it in a used bookstore, I picked it up right away. The setting is Shanghai in the early 1900s where May-Li, a young Chinese woman, fights to save her life by running away from an abusive marriage, becomes a courtesan, then marries an Australian. As the title implies, she had her feet bound as a young girl- this story goes more deeply into the reasons for the binding than Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, and it also explores the sexual fetishes around the custom. Then there is Alice, May's Caucasian niece, who also seeks freedom from a rigidly British upbringing, and who has more in common with her Chinese aunt than her English mother. I did get lost in there for a bit, while May is recovering from an addiction to opium, but the story is engrossing, and well-written. Some interesting characters suddenly appear, but their place in the story is well -laid out, and they give direction to the plot. This could have been what I call a "commuter read", but when a book is well-written and it informs me, I'm a happy reader!