DREAMS OF JOY

Janet Song’s voice reflects the tone of sorrow in See’s emotional sequel to SHANGHAI GIRLS. The story begins as Joy, the daughter of a once-popular poster model, flees her Los Angeles home. She feels responsible for her stepfather’s death and was shocked to learn that the woman she believed was her aunt is really her birth mother. Now she seeks her father, an artist whom she’s never met, by returning to her ancestral home in Chairman Mao’s People’s Republic of China. Song depicts Joy’s short-lived infatuation with communism and her subsequent discovery of deprivations and illusions. Song also delivers the poignancy of the novel’s subplot as Joy’s mother follows her daughter to China to ease difficulties and persuade her to return home. S.W. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2011]