“Tragic, funny, lyrical, and respectful, this intimate and unforgettable family chronicle is also a history of modern China.”
– Library Journal.

“A multilayered memoir that successfully weaves historical detail with familial emotions of different generations.”
– Kirkus Reviews.

“Together May-lee and Winberg Chai have created a testament that reads like a compelling and rich novel, full of incident, soul, and fire.”
– Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The Devil’s Highway and the national bestselling novel, The Hummingbird’s Daughter.

“An amazing story of survival and endurance, fierce love and bitter resentments, and the failures and triumphs of the human heart.”
– Lisa See, bestselling author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and On Gold Mountain.

“A breathtaking epic encompassing not only family dramas but also the Chinese civil war, the Japanese attack on Nanking, and the difficulties of immigration and return. This is a gripping and historically grounded read.”
– Publishers Weekly.

“More than a good story packaged between glossy covers. It reveals the conflict between a daughter’s desire to know her heritage and her father’s desire not to be reminded how much distance the passage of time and the vicissitudes of history have placed between him and his origins.”
– Washington Post Book World.

“This is an intricately orchestrated cross-generational memoir, and one that is particularly successful in linking the world of China in the first half of the twentieth century to the opportunities and ambiguities of those Chinese who grew up as Americans. It is a subtle book that resonates in the mind as well as being a true family history that spans moods and generations.”
– Jonathan Spence, author of The Search for Modern China and the George Burton Adams Professor of History at Yale University.