SWIMMING BACK TO TROUT RIVER

Against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a husband and wife are afraid to share their deepest longings and regrets.

Debut novelist Feng writes within the context of two Chinese concepts: yuanfen and zaohua. As explained in a chapter called “The Improviser’s Guide to Untranslatable Words,” yuanfen concerns the relationship between two people “brought together in ways large or small, for a few minutes or for decades,” while zaohua encapsulates the insignificance of the individual in “the makings and transmutations” of a world “indifferent to human pain.” When Cassia and Momo meet in 1973, they both avoid sharing the yuanfen experiences that have already deeply marked them. While an engineering student in Beijing in the '60s, Momo was deeply influenced by a young violinist. Dawn—who goes on to follow her unforeseeable trajectory in a parallel subplot—introduced Momo to music. Although his commitment to proletariat ideals at the time conflicted with Dawn’s commitment to art, music will remain crucial to him in ways he can’t explain to Cassia. Meanwhile, Cassia’s belief in yuanfen and zaohua has been sharpened by a trauma she is too ashamed to share with Momo: When she was 23, she witnessed the gruesome death of the young man she loved when he fell from a fifth story window while being interrogated by revolutionary vanguard members. Based on their pasts, Cassia and Momo react differently to their daughter Junie, who was born without legs beneath her knees. Ever optimistic Momo dotes on Junie while pessimistic Cassia’s love is tinged with guilt and a sense of zaohua. Momo goes to America for grad school in 1981, and Cassia follows several years later, leaving Junie with her paternal grandparents, who give her the nurturing Cassia knows she can’t. With disarmingly quiet prose, Feng digs beneath Cassia’s and Momo’s reluctance to mine their emotional depths as they struggle to grasp their individual experiences as well as their fractured relationship.

Filled with tragedy yet touched with life-affirming passion.