Hits the ground running... right into the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. Wow. Cheng's writing is very stunning. This book takes the perspective of three people: "The soldier" and big brother, Lu. "The dissident" and little brother, Xiao-Di. "The Comrade" and leader of China, Deng Xiaopeng. I almost feel like I've met Xiao-Di before -- very real, very relatable (even Deng Xiaopeng is made very real!). This should be read by anyone wanting a dose of easily readable history of China. I think it does a good job of covering the basics of Chinese history in memorable fiction -- at least for someone who knows little about it yet. I think one of the main things that makes this novel "fictional" is giving a story to the mysterious "tank man" -- the man standing in front of the tanks in that famous picture. They never did find out who the man was, so Cheng has a great time making a story for him. The story simply flows really really well. If you had handed me a book like this, something fictional yet historical, I would have learned so much more than I did in history class. A favorite read from this year, so far. ( )

A novel inspired by the young Chinese man who faced down a tank during the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. The story is told from the widely varying perspectives of that imagined character, his brother (a soldier in the People's Army who is particularly ruthless in dealing with the dissidents), and Deng Xiaoping, the reformist ruler who, at age 85, ordered the crackdown. Only the dissident's chapters, however, are told in first person. The story is interesting, but not, somehow, as moving as it seems like it should be, perhaps because the prose is pretty pedestrian; and, having read a number of other novels--good ones--in recent years set in Communist China, this somehow did not feel authentic, though I can't pin down why. ( )