Deanna Fei

After having a perfectly normal first pregnancy and giving birth to a wonderfully healthy boy (whom I wouldn't be surprised grows up to be a psychopath after the weird praise and expectations both his parents put on him - but that's another story) she has a surprise pregnancy, which also seems perfectly healthy until, out of the blue, she goes into labor at 25 weeks and 3 days. Needless to say, this baby needs extreme attention and she spends months pumping breast milk every 2 to 3 hours. show more Months! I loved breastfeeding, just attached my babies to my breasts and went about any ol' business I wanted to. I can't imagine being attached to a breast pump every 2-3 hours for months. Then, when it seems everyone might be out of the woods, the boss of the company holds a press conference in which he says the reason he's stealing from everyone's retirement is that the company experienced a severe loss due to 2 "distressed" babies who had been born that year. This lead to what was a far more "likeable" part of the book in which Fei discusses health care, health insurance and whether or not some people should be ashamed for needing more health care than others. Really an excellent analysis of the situation of health care, corporate greed and insurance in the US. show less

Deana Fei's debut novel is an impressively wrought story of the complications that exist in families, in this case it is a particular family, but the lessons are universal.

A Thread of Sky follows the lives of Irene Shen, her 3 daughters, her sister and her mother as they all struggle to find themselves in relation to each other, to their roots, and ultimately to their own selves. After the sudden death of Irene's husband (the girls' father), she arranges for all of them to tour China. One show more daughter is already living there, the grandmother left decades ago under mysterious circumstances and has no desire to return, and the 2 remaining daughters have their own troubles they're dealing with and not much interested in their mother or her plans or their Chinese roots. We never completely understand why they all agree to go but they do and we're glad because that's where the story really picks up.

Though Fei could probably have cut her story by 50 pages, she does a great job of building the characters and slowly inviting us in to this precious space of love and fear, history and secrets and how they can impact a family for generations. And perhaps most importantly her characters show a resilience, an indication that it is never too late to make lasting connections. show less

Many years ago when I was still in school, I chose to focus on Asian-American literature not only because it was fully of newly emerging voices, but because I was fascinated by the differences in the stories told by these first, second, and third generation Americans. Deanna Fei's novel, A Thread of Sky, not only illuminates the generational differences but also highlights the differences between parents and children in this achingly lovely story of family dynamics and the search for show more connection.

Irene Shen is newly widowed and worried about her relatonship with her three daughters when she cooks up the idea of a tour of mainland China with the girls, her sister, and their mother. She is, in part, trying to atone for saying "Good riddance" as her late husband walked out the door the last time, only to die in a car accident hours later. She chooses to ignore the girls' reluctance to go on the trip, to put their own lives on hold for some strange notion of returning to their roots despite the fact that each was born in New York. Irene also feels the need to reconnect with her own semi-estranged mother and distant sister, making for an unlikely travel group with each member harboring her own secrets and disappointments. And despite the reluctance on the part of all participants, everyone falls in with Irene's tour plans. The characters' desires to remain invulnerable is absolutely palpable as they hide themselves from each other. But throughout their journey both within China and into their relationships with each other, they start to slowly unfold, allowing glimpses of their true and hidden natures.

Irene's daughters, Nora, Kay, and Sophie, are second generation Chinese-Americans who fit the stereotypical Asian-American ideal, at least superficially. But they each have their own challenges. Nora is afraid to trust men and cannot even commit enough to her fiance to set a date or even tell her family they are engaged so when she finds him cheating and kicks him out, she understands that he has only done what she long expected of him. Kay has gone to China for school, looking for an authentic experience and understanding, tired of being asked in the US where she is from when the correct answer is New York. But she comes to understand that she does not come from China either. She has been trying to rescue young women from careers as "hostesses" aka prostitutes but finds that she doesn't understand the cultural situation well enough to save anyone, least of all herself. Sophie, the youngest, has only just graduated from high school. She is filled with self-loathing and suffers from bulimia, unsatisfied with the person she is and wanting to break free.

As the tour progresses, the characters start learning to accept each other for who they are instead of imposing an outside vision of who they should be on each other, to accept each other flaws and all. And as the girls' relinquish their hold on the secrets they have been concealing, they work on their grandmother and the silence she's maintained for years. Before the tour, Kay had discovered that Lin Yulan had been a feminist revolutionary but none of them knows much beyond that and the fact that she had left their grandfather and emigrated to America, following in her daughters' footsteps. The girls push for a reconciliation between their aging grandparents, not understanding the depth of the betrayal the memory of which they are besmirching. But when they see that some hurts and betrayals are too deep and too permanent to ever heal, they back off and allow Lin Yulan the peace of her own choices.

The descriptions of the scenery is very evocative and majestic. And there is a respectful reverence towards China's tourist attractions and landmarks that shines though. The characters are multi-faceted, flawed but sympathetic. The ways in which they hurt each other precisely because they love each other and the feelings of inadequacy and disppointment is rife in the depiction of their relationships with each other. Their striving for perfection, for themselves and in each others' eyes is a theme that permeates all of their interactions. This well-written novel will appeal to book clubs and to readers who enjoy not only tales of families but those looking for a story that ultimately rewards compassion, understanding, forgiveness, and love. show less

Like some other reviewers, I have mixed feelings about this book. The idea of the story was very appealing. The characters and their troubling relationships with one another were interesting. The journey through China and the various trials of the characters was fascinating. Despite all this, there was something frustrating and something slightly grating about the book. There were trivial irritations - the use of a few rather unpleasant slang terms was out of place and the graphic vomiting show more was too much to the point of absurdity . There were more serious annoyances - the over-emphasis on the deep distrust and dislike among the characters, It could have been much more subtle and still have worked. I kept wanting to really like these people but I found them terribly self-absorbed - no wonder the husband finally left! Still more, I wanted them to like each other. However, even by the end of the book, it seemed they were only just starting to warm up.
I loved the descriptions of China and its history. The cities and landscape were vividly real and the hardships endured evoked real sorrow and terror for me.
All in all, something kept me wanting to know what happened next and how it all turned out which is a very positive sign, so I am giving this book a 31/2. I think the writer is very talented but may want to trust her instincts more and rely less on writing workshop formulas. show less