Earlier this week I had the pleasure of going with a friend to see Chinese-American author Lisa See give a lecture at a nearby library. (Woot-woot for library public lectures! Check out to see who your own public library is bringing in. I’ve seen people from Nobel physicists to Ray Bradbury.)
See is the author of several novels (most recently Shanghai Girls and Dreams of Joy) and a sort of biography of her family’s immigration-to-America experience, On Gold Mountain. She’s also the author of some fairly successful mystery novels (Dragon Bones, and others. You know where powells.com is, go look.)
She’s an excellent speaker. Funny and friendly and frank. The venue had more would-be audience than it did seats, and she made a point, before the lecture started, of going to talk to the unlucky no-seaters. Afterwards she sat patiently, endlessly chatty, signing books for a long line of people.
Her books are very readable, but not flawless. It’s possible to accuse her of using her novels (I haven’t read the non-fiction yet) as frameworks on which to hang her research into Chinese history, but the research is fascinating. Her books give an excellent look into Chinese social history and, in the case of Shanghai Girls and Dreams of Joy, what life was like under Mao’s terrible regime.
See also wrote Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, which looks into a long friendship between two nineteenth-century women in rural China. Complete with details of foot-binding. Sad. Snow Flower was recently filmed, with Wendi Murdoch (yes, her) as one of the producers. The story was substantially altered for the script, and the movie got poor reviews.
See does her own research, and told of visiting China recently with Amy Tan, her dear friend. My friend and I both left the lecture desperately wishing we’d been along on their trip, grim accommodations and all. She comes across as a person you’d love having a girdle-loosening lunch with.
