A propulsive extraordinary novel about a mother and her daughters’ harrowing escape to Taiwan
as the Communist revolution sweeps through China by debut author Eve J. Chung based on her
family story An Instant USA Today Bestseller a Good Morning America Buzz Pick and a People
Book of the Week! “Throw open the doors of your heart for the lionhearted girls of Chung’s
gripping debut . . . they are heroines for the ages." —People Daughters are the Ang family’s
curse. In 1948 civil war ravages the Chinese countryside but in rural Shandong the wealthy
landowning Angs are more concerned with their lack of an heir. Hai is the eldest of four girls
and spends her days looking after her sisters. Headstrong Di who is just a year younger
learns to hide in plain sight and their mother—abused by the family for failing to birth a
boy—finds her own small acts of rebellion in the kitchen. As the Communist army closes in on
their town the rest of the prosperous household flees leaving behind the girls and their
mother because they view them as useless mouths to feed. Without an Ang male to punish the
land-seizing cadres choose Hai as the eldest child to stand trial for her family’s crimes.
She barely survives their brutality. Realizing the worst is yet to come the women plan their
escape. Starving and penniless but resourceful they forge travel permits and embark on a
thousand-mile journey to confront the family that abandoned them. From the countryside to the
bustling city of Qingdao and onward to British Hong Kong and eventually Taiwan they witness
the changing tide of a nation and the plight of multitudes caught in the wake of revolution.
But with the loss of their home and the life they’ve known also comes new freedom—to take hold
of their fate to shake free of the bonds of their gender and to claim their own story. Told
in assured evocative prose with impeccably drawn characters Daughters of Shandong is a
hopeful powerful story about the resilience of women in war the enduring love between mothers
daughters and sisters and the sacrifices made to lift up future generations.
