I really struggled with The Lost Daughter of Happiness by acclaimed Chinese novelist Geling Yan. Proclaimed as a haunting and moving love story, this novel mostly left me feeling confused. The story is told in a strange second person narrative that left the main character voiceless which made it very difficult to have much empathy for her or the very difficult life she lived.

The novel, set in 1860’s San Francisco, does give the reader a very accurate picture of the anti-Chinese feelings that were prevalent at that time. Fusang, was kidnapped in China, shipped to San Francisco and sold into prostitution. Transported from brothel to brothel she is followed by her admirer, a young white boy called Chris who believes himself in love with her. Another character, the very interesting Da Yong, also is heavily involved in her life becoming her owner, her pimp and eventually it is revealed that they were married by proxy many years ago. The problem with the style in which the book is written is that the reader feels complete detachment. We are never given any insight into how Fusang feels about being kidnapped, becoming a prostitute or even if she cares for any of the men in her life.

Overall I found The Lost Daughter of Happiness to be a slow moving and rather difficult read. The author was clear in her depiction of the exploitation and oppression that Chinese women faced and I believe her intention was to allow the reader to see the racial ignorance and the clash of cultures in an objective way but I wanted a story that I could sink my teeth into not a series of vague impressions. ( )

The Lost Daughter of Happiness is a remarkable novel, a love story unlike any I've read. It unfolds in alternating points of view. Writing in the second person, as if she were speaking to Fusang, looking back at Fusang's life from the present day, the narrator's language is factual, unemotional, sometimes bordering on contemptuous: You are a prostitute, she says, brought to California from China, one who didn't die during the long voyage, who didn't succumb to disease or beatings after being sold into slavery. "I certainly won't let people confuse you with any of the other three thousand whores from China." Occasionally the narrator quotes histories of the California Gold Rush from which she draws her account of Fusang. Occasionally she tells Fusang tidbits about her own life as a recent Chinese immigrant, about her own perplexity understanding the ways of white people, including her husband.

In this new novel, set in the 1870s, she has borrowed a figure from history, Fusang, the most famous prostitute in San Francisco, and has imagined an unusual lover for her, a 12 year old white boy named Chris.
Approaching the issue of anti-Chinese racism through these two characters, she tells a tale of slavery, rape and murder, and, ostensibly, love. I say ostensibly because Chris and Fusang remain completely opaque throughout the novel; we can never comprehend their motivations or thought processes.

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I understand why Harriet is the #1 reviewer - she put in words exactly how I felt about the book. I thought the setting and "history" of the period was interesting, but I just could not become attached to any of the characters. ( )

The nightmare of life in post Civil War San Francisco for Chinese immigrants is exposed in this quasi love story.

Chris, aged 12 is fascinated, then obsessed throughout his life, by the 20-year old Chinese whore, Fusang, who lives in sexual slavery. As he matures, his picture of the woman develops and he sees her tolerance – even fondness – for cruel treatment that indicate she’s either a masochist, or eternally accepting and loyal. In turn, his own tolerance (once admiration) for Chinese culture as it is manifested in San Francisco withers.

The third leg of the love triangle in this novel belongs to Da Yong, a Chinese hood/mobster who keeps Fusang in his thrall and is Chris’ nemesis. Readers may find him stereotypical rather than individualized.

Yan writes a book that examines issues of sexual slavery and racism in a nightmare within a dream style, interweaving chronology and point of view in an utterly original way that is ambitious, eloquent, unique.

The novel is an unforgettable post-multicultural examination of major themes that sadly, and too often tragically, persist today, only not in the open as they did in the period this story is set. ( )

I started to read this book but wasn't really enjoying it, so I stopped.