Book 60: An Empire of Women

This is my second book by Karen Shepard this year (Don't I Know You? was the first). An Empire of Women was her first novel, and I think she's grown quite a bit as a writer. It's still a really good book, but her other work is more like poetry, more subtle, but also technically clearer and easier to follow.




At the beginning of this one, it felt like we were jumping awkwardly between perspectives. Shepard alternates between the first-person perspective of Grandma, third person of Mom, Daughter, and Daughter's Ward, and descriptions of photographs. It's a lot to handle, and it felt rough to me at first. The reader has to adapt to the abrupt changes in viewpoint. But, after about 30 pages, I was completely into the story and had very little trouble for the rest of the book.

Three generations of women meet for a weekend, bringing with them the youngest woman's ward, a little Chinese girl whose mother wants to leave her to grow up in the U.S. Additionally, the grandmother reminisces about her own mother. So we essentially meet 5 generations of Chinese- or part-Chinese-descent women.

It's a great look into complicated mother-daughter-granddaughter relationships. The cultural differences between the women are huge, due to growing up in different countries, under different circumstances, and also due to their different generations. There are also intriguing peeks into Chinese history and culture during the Cultural Revolution.

There is beautiful writing and character development:

Grandma's way of dealing with kids: "Knives cut, pliers pinched: reasons for learning how to put both to their proper uses. And when they weren't put to their proper use, I told them: You are bleeding. Next time, handle yourself more suitably."

The grandma has such a distant relationship with her own daughter that she tells us, "I didn't know her well enough to know what she was capable of doing next."

The mother wonders: "Did people really change? When she was little, she'd thought that people got better and better year after year. Life was slow improvement. Now she thought that people just got more accustomed to their own mistakes." As I've mentioned before, I ALSO thought people got better all the time. It was very disappointing to realize that most people just give up and stop trying to improve. Did everyone believe that and then have to find out the sad truth?

Give this book a shot -- it's worth getting through the rough start.