Inheritance (40 page)

Authors: Lan Samantha Chang

BOOK: Inheritance

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More praise for Lan Samantha Chang and
Inheritance

“Rich, complex, historically resonant, and beautifully told,
Inheritance
illuminates a crucial time in China’s history through the passions of a remarkable family.”

—Andrea Barrett, author of
Servants of the Map

“In this vivid and haunting novel of people caught up in love and war, Chang creates characters with such passionate understanding, they remain with us permanently.”

—Patricia Powell, author of
The Pagoda

“A wonderful story—both unique and universal, it moves through time and history as intricately as it travels the troubled roads of the human heart.”

—Elizabeth Strout, author of
Amy and Isabelle

“In this absorbing story of two sisters whose lives are shaped by the battles within their family and their country, Lan Samantha Chang once again displays her remarkable gift for creating characters whom the reader will want to follow anywhere.
Inheritance
is a wonderful, passionate novel.”

—Margot Livesey, author of
Eva Moves the Furniture

“In
Inheritance
, Chang has done much more than create a dragon lady and counterpose her to a quietly heroic sister. Junan’s steely will is a carapace that presses on and imprisons her beating heart. . . . Junan’s younger sister is also searingly portrayed, but as much through absence, silence and annunciation as through action.”

—Richard Eder,
New York Times Book Review

“History and family are two pillars in Lan Samantha Chang’s novel
Inheritance
, which follows two sisters from China to the United States. But the book’s strength is its characters, who are driven by love, crafty relatives, and a hunger to know the past. Most striking are Junan, the older sister, and her efforts to control those within her emotional reach. In other novels, she might merely be a sketch of meanness. Here she inspires a mix of disapproval, respect, and affection.”

—
Boston Globe

“Chang . . . tells a polished story, smooth as stone. It is most poignant as it delves into the follies that make us human.”

—Ana Cabán,
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“Like eating a meal that you’ve enjoyed before, you come back to [
Inheritance
] gladly ready to satisfy yourself again.”

—Anhoni Patel,
San Francisco Chronicle

“The sense of long family histories both spoken and unspoken is powerful, and the restrained conclusion has the force of Ishiguro’s
The Remains of the Day
.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Readers who enjoy the works of strong writers like Amy Tan, Gail Tsukiyama, and Hong Ying will relish this novel.”

—
Library Journal

“The skill with which this novel is written is magical.”

—
Historical Novels Review

“Chang’s debut novel is filled with complex characters and intricate details about their troubled lives.”

—
Asian Week

Although many of the political and military figures mentioned
in this novel did exist in Republican China (1911–49),
the narrator, her friends, and her family are imaginary.

Printed in the United States of America

First published as a Norton paperback 2005

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

Portions of this book have appeared previously in
Harvard Review
and
Ploughshares
.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., for permission to reprint “
Classic of Poetry
LXXXI: I Went Along the Broad Road,” from
An Anthology of Chinese Literature
:
Beginnings to 1911
by Stephen Owen, editor and translator. Copyright © 1996 by Stephen Owen and The Council for Cultural Planning and Development of the Executive Yuan of China. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Manufacturing by R.R. Donnelley, Harrisonburg

Book design by Barbara Bachman

Production manager: Amanda Morrison

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chang, Lan Samantha.

Inheritance / by Lan Samantha Chang.—1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-393-05919-7 (hardcover)

1. Sisters—Fiction. 2. Betrayal—Fiction. 3. Women—China—Fiction. 4. Women

immigrants—Fiction. 5. Military spouses—Fiction. 6. Arranged marriage—Fiction.

7. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 8. Chinese American women—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3553.H2724I54 2004