This one simply wasn't for me. I'm not sure why, but it didn't hold my interest even through the first 20 pages. Too sad? My moodiness? Who knows, but this was a DNF for me. Sorry about that. It should have gone to someone who would have enjoyed it more ( )

A novel based on the author's grandmother, a journalist in Shanghai in the 1920's. The locale, the history, and the woman herself make for adventure, love, tragedy, and a very interesting read. ( )

In a way, these are two love stories. One is the love of this book's protagonist, Irene Kuhn, with her husband, Bert. The other is the love of the author with her grandmother Irene. Ms Kuhn was one of the first woman foreign correspondents. We follow her story from her docking in Shanghai in 1922 to her travel back to the states in 1926. A trip that started as a routine trip to visit her family and in-laws, but turned distantly tragic.

The author decided to make this a fictional piece as the subject needed full treatment, but the oral stories and later the Butterfly Box needed quite a bit of infill. The story shows the life of foreigners who hold posts in a rather exotic locale. It is clear that there was not a relationship with the locals outside of a servant relationship. However, Irene's daughter, Rene, had a strong relationship with her nanny (called an amah in Chinese) and had picked up a pidgin English. It is interesting that Irene and Bert traveled to Hawaii to have their daughter, being away for a half year.

China was in a storm of restiveness with an uprising in 1925, leading onto a General Strike. Irene traveled to Peking during this period and I enjoyed the description of this event. Thomas Dunn their doctor features in the story right through the inquest.

This book was a good look into a forgotten time in the 20th century. Writing this review, several months after publication, I found that only one library in Utica has picked up this book. ( )

Interesting but I had a hard time really getting into it and loving it. The cover leaves a lot to be desired also. I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but it can help to have an interesting cover. ( )

“You can’t wrap fire in paper” is a Chinese proverb. A somewhat American addendum might be, “but you can try.” Sometimes a story can feel as though what is being attempted, wrapping fire in paper, appears like life itself real, random, illogical, doomed, tragic and beautiful all in one moment. The flash of a magic trick, fire is wrapped in paper. Heather Corbally Bryant’s novel about her grandmother, You Can’t Wrap Fire in Paper, is just such a tale.

In the early 1920’s two Americans, writers and newspaper reporters both, are transported by their craft and lust for adventure to Shanghai. China had thrown off her emperor, but ancient cultures inside the great land, as well as opportunists outside her borders struggled to control what she would become next. The western prosperity that followed World War I allowed even newspaper reporters to write for themselves a life nearly as regal as the diplomats and officials they covered, especially in Shanghai’s French Concession, one of the imperial enclaves remaining in the great city. Quite young, Irene Corbally and Bert Kuhn would prove that even in the midst of a romantic fairy tale, one they at times seemed aware of even as their lives danced through it, love can indeed be real.

Their marriage, the birth of their daughter, Rene, along with bouts of jealousy, longing, affection, tragedy and loss would test and confirm over and over again the certainty of their love.

There is a peculiar detachment that I felt reading this book, an uneasiness that came from never quite finding a comfortable perspective to observe Irene and Bert’s story. Though a novel it contains photographs of Irene, Bert, Rene, and the other important characters. Maps Shanghai, the French Concession and other prominent stages of the scenes are also included. Though historical fiction, I found myself looking for other tangent information the way one might hope to find context in the telling of a history.

Obviously, the day to day interactions inside this very real world are fictionalized. At times it seems there are gentle velvet ropes that limit our ability to go past a polite observation of the hearts and souls of Irene and Bert. Not only is Irene a woman reporter in a man’s world, she often appears more successful at her profession than her husband. As though not tough enough on the male ego, clinging in many ways to the final restrictive remnants of the Victorian age, she is more successful on the very stage where Bert hopes to shine. Perhaps as a way of coping with disappointment, or possibly even the root cause of his struggles, Bert seems on the precipice of both a gambling and drinking problem.

Finally, there is the detachment between Irene and Bert themselves. Physical, emotional, and even the confusion that comes from simply trying to sort through what one really wants out of life, and how or even if, all life’s different threads will be woven together. Bert seems to be lost, unaware that the world he believes he is a part of has changed. Irene appears to be a pioneer in struggling with the question that will become cliche for her granddaughter’s generation, can she “have it all.” It would be another half-century before that question would even be recognized as a valid one by most folk.

In You Can’t Wrap Fire in Paper, maybe detachment itself is beauty’s illustrator. Often the value of something is not recognized until it is discovered to be fragile or fleeting. Anger and frustration with those we love appear light burdens indeed when replaced with grief. Though trying to wrap fire in paper is from the start a futile effort, at least we are aware the fire is worthy of preserving. You Can’t Wrap Fire in Paper is an excellent representation of that fact, and one wonderfully told. ( )