The Fortunes, Peter Ho Davies
The Fortunes, Peter Ho Davies
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The Fortunes

Author: Peter Ho Davies

Narrator: James Chen

Unabridged: 10 hr 38 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/06/2016


Synopsis

A New York Times Editors' Choice
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2016“Davies writes with a rare emotional resonance and a deft sense of structure; it's hard not to be in awe of the way he's composed this complex, beautiful novel . . . Stunning.” —NPR“Davies [is] a master storyteller.” —Entertainment WeeklySly, funny, intelligent, and artfully structured, The Fortunes recasts American history through the lives of Chinese Americans and reimagines the multigenerational novel through the fractures of immigrant family experience.Inhabiting four lives—a railroad baron’s valet who unwittingly ignites an explosion in Chinese labor, Hollywood’s first Chinese movie star, a hate-crime victim whose death mobilizes Asian Americans, and a biracial writer visiting China for an adoption—this novel captures and capsizes over a century of our history, showing that even as family bonds are denied and broken, a community can survive—as much through love as blood.

About Peter Ho Davies

PETER HO DAVIES is on the faculty of the graduate program in creative writing at the University of Michigan. His debut collection, The Ugliest House in the World, won the John Llewellyn Rhys and PEN/Macmillan awards in Britain. His second collection, Equal Love, was hailed by the New York Times Book Review for its "stories as deep and clear as myth." It was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and a New York Times Notable Book. In 2003 Davies was named among the "Best of Young British Novelists" by Granta. The Welsh Girl was his first novel. The son of a Welsh father and Chinese mother, Davies was raised in England and spent his summers in Wales.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Esil on September 10, 2016

3.75 stars. The Fortunes was a great concept by a talented writer that worked better in some parts than others. It's divided into four stories that are only marginally related in a way that becomes clear at the end. Each deals with different experiences of Chinese Americans at different points in hi......more

Goodreads review by Snotchocheez on July 29, 2017

3.5 stars......more

Goodreads review by Jessica on September 10, 2016

This sprawling novel about the Chinese American experience spans from the building of the transcontinental railroad in the 1800s to present-day, each of the four sections dedicated to a different individual (three of whom are real historical figures) navigating life, hardship and identity in America......more

Goodreads review by Stephen on November 27, 2017

this book is based over a 150 year period around 4 stories involving Chinese (Chinese Americans) where there is subtle and overt racism towards the characters but liked the novel as it showed how it could be to be an immigrant or child of an immigrant in a very difficult environment but at the same......more