Dreams of Joy by Lisa See ✔✔✔✔

I copied this summary from Book Browse
Lisa See continues the story of sisters Pearl and May from Shanghai Girls, and Pearl's strong-willed nineteen-year-old daughter, Joy. 

Reeling from newly uncovered family secrets, and anger at her mother and aunt for keeping them from her, Joy runs away to Shanghai in early 1957 to find her birth father - the artist Z.G. Li, with whom both May and Pearl were once in love. Dazzled by him, and blinded by idealism and defiance, Joy throws herself into the New Society of Red China, heedless of the dangers in the communist regime. 

Devastated by Joy's flight and terrified for her safety, Pearl is determined to save her daughter, no matter the personal cost. From the crowded city to remote villages, Pearl confronts old demons and almost insurmountable challenges as she follows Joy, hoping for reconciliation. Yet even as Joy's and Pearl's separate journeys converge, one of the most tragic episodes in China's history threatens their very lives. 

Acclaimed for her richly drawn characters and vivid storytelling, Lisa See once again renders a family challenged by tragedy and time, yet ultimately united by the resilience of love.


I found this a little slow-going at first, and somewhat unbelievable - we're not told why Joy suddenly flies to Hong Kong to eventually enter Red China, only that there has been a big upset between Pearl and May, at which time Joy discovers that May is her real mother, not Pearl, who is in fact her aunt.  Upon arriving in Shanghai, it takes Joy all of 30 minutes to find Z.G.!  Certainly Joy is quite idealistic - a typical 19 year old who has a high opinion of herself and refuses to listen to common sense, but we see as the novel moves on why she was presented this way in the beginning.


Her experiences at the Green Dragon commune are horrific - the constant loudspeakers spouting out propoganda, the communal living and social interaction.  Oh, I forgot to mention when Joy arrives in Shanghai the immigration officer throws out her bras - they are considered a Western abomination!


Then there's Mao's Great Leap Forward, how everything has to be "faster, bigger, better" than the enemies', specifically the USA, and how this results in a terrible famine where the families at the commune are restricted to 1/4 of one person's ration to feed the whole family, how they eat leaves, roots, rats, mice  anything to stay alive and of course many of them die terrible deaths.


Lisa See writes well and thoroughly and I ended up learning a lot from this novel.  Our Book Club theme for September is China from 1885 to the present, and this will certainly be part of that discussion.