The Lost Daughter of Happiness

by Yan, Geling

• ISBN13: 9780786866540
• ISBN10: 0786866543
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-04-18
• Publisher: Hyperion

Summary

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 eventu