Books Set in North America; California and Oregon

Small World, by Jonathan Evison (2022)

 

This novel starts out with a train crash in the winter somewhere in Oregon en route to Seattle.  Walter Bergen is on his final run as engineer before his retirement.  After the crash, we meet several of the passengers, who come from all walks of life and backgrounds.  Not only do we meet them, but we are introduced to their ancestors and their struggles to make a life in America.

 

The novel switches from the present day to the 1850s where we learn of the immigrant experience of several families.  Walter Bergen descended from an Irish family who fled Ireland during the potato famine.  There is Jenny Chen, whose ancestor Wu Chen, came from China in the 1850s and began life in California panning for gold.  He acquired a small stash of gold, which he turned into thriving grocery business.  Malik Flowers is a young basketball with dreams of being drafted by the NBA.  He is descended from a run-away slave.  Laila, whose ancestors were Native Americans, hopped on the train to escape from an abusive husband.

 

I enjoyed reading about the backgrounds of all of these characters.

 

Read:  September 13, 2023

 

4 Stars

Books Set in the United States: Washington State

The Girl Who Wrote in Silk, by Kelli Estes (2015)

The Girl Who Wrote in Silk is a historical novel of a slice of Chinese live in the United States in the late 1800s in the Northwest.  The novel follows two young women ~ present day Inara Erickson, who’s family owns a large shipping company out of Seattle and Mei Lien, a young Chinese woman who lived in the late 1800s.  The novel goes back and forth between the lives of these two woman.

Inara inherited the estate of her single aunt who owned a home on an island off the coast of Seattle.  The estate brought back memories of her childhood, as she and her family summered there.  Initially, she sought to sell the estate, but decided to turn it into a boutique hotel. During the construction, she discovered an elaborately embroidered silk sleeve to a garment hidden in a staircase.  The sleeve depicted a strange story of a ship and people floating in the water.  She takes the sleeve to a Chinese professor at a university to inquire about its authenticity.

The late 1800s were terrible times for the Chinese living in the United States. The Chinese Exclusion Act had been signed in 1882, forbidding the immigration of Chinese laborers.  Mobs in various west-coast towns literally forced the Chinese from their homes.  Mei Lien and her father were forced onto a boat, ostensibly sending them back to China. When Mei Lien learned of their actual destination, she was literally thrown overboard and was rescued by Joseph McElroy, a farmer on one of the Orcas Island.

In the course of Inara’s research on the sleeve, she discovers a terrible family secret that has been in her family for years.  When she tells her father, he warns her to continue to keep the secret because it could destroy his shipping business.

The chapters of Mei Lien are very fascinating.  We see a young girl exposed to the prejudices of the whites, and how she learns to cope.  After she married a white man, his family refused to accept her.

The chapters on Inara are initially interesting, however, her renovation of the estate into a hotel do not ring true, nor does her budding romance with the professor.

Still, this was a good book and provided an insight into a piece of history that is not often addressed.

Read: July 11, 2018

4 Stars