Jan 25, 2018

Book Beginning: Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien


Do Not Say We Have Nothing

Title: Do Not Say We Have Nothing
Author: Madeleine Thien
Published October 11, 2016, W.W. Norton
Source: library
A novel about musicians studying Western classical music at the Shanghai Conservatory in the 1960s, and about the legacy of the 1989 Tiananmen demonstrations. 

Book beginning:
In a single year, my father left us twice. The first time, to end his marriage, and the second, when he took his own life. That year, 1989, my mother flew to Hong Kong and laid my father to rest in a cemetery near the Chinese border. Afterwards, distraught, she rushed home to Vancouver where I had been alone. I was ten years old.
Here is what I remember. 

Page 56:
Still, those pretty piano notes were mocking all the movements she made. They dripped from the kitchen to the bedroom to the parlour, seeping like rainwater over the persimmons on the table, the winter coats of her family, and the placid softness of Chairman Mao's face in the grey portrait framed on the wall. 

I like the descriptive writing, evocative and conveying a certain mood.  What are you reading this week?

Memes: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader

4 comments:

  1. That emotional beginning was enough to pull me in! Powerful stuff!
    I added you to the Linky. Happy weekend!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, that beginning! My heart broke! Thank you for sharing and have a great weekend! :)

    Jo-Ann

    ReplyDelete

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