Publisher description: In the late 1860s, a young woman named Fusang is kidnapped from China and sold into prostitution in San Francisco's Chinatown. Chris, her first customer, is twelve years old. For weeks, he has spied on her; now, he meets the object of his obsession and can only gaze at her, stunned by her beauty. The Lost Daughter of Happiness is an epic and moving love story of individuals intoxicated with one another and yet repeatedly separated by prejudice and mistrust. The relationships are full of passion and rage, and the novel chronicles the lives of the main characters over decades against a back-drop of social turmoil -- the anti-Chinese hysteria that plagued San Francisco. Fusang is an extraordinary character, both powerful and resigned; Chris finds himself torn between the security of his staid, white world and the sensual allure of hers. And then there is the gangster Da Yong, who is rumored to carry daggers dipped in ancient poison, who wears a ring on every finger, and who sells his naked photograph, which is used as a talisman -- evil to ward off evil. He enters Fusang's life with brutal force, but when his world and Chris's eventually collide, both men turn out to be far different than they seemed. Geling Yan, one of China's most acclaimed novelists, plays with familiar "exotic" imagery, such as bound feet and incense smoke and opium dens, in startling and ironic ways. She creates scenes of intense eroticism that will remind readers of Marguerite Duras's The Lover. She tells a riveting story that is both inevitable and surprising. And she employs a modern narrator who actually speaks to the characters about what has changed in the world -- and how much hasn't. Written in a haunting voice that explores the present's bitter truths through the prism of the past, The Lost Daughter of Happiness is a mesmerizing and provocative work of fiction.
