Meadowdale H.S. graduation 2012
Middletown H.S. graduation 2012
Dunbar H.S. graduation 2012
Book Nook provides readers with insights into the world of books. Vick Mickunas takes you into the center of the publishing world with the latest book buzz, book reviews, and exclusive chats with authors..Home > Blogs > Book Nook > Archives > 2010 > January > 09 > Entry
The Piano Teacher
“The Piano Teacher” by Janice Y.K. Lee (Penguin, 328 pages, $15).
A year ago a virtual unknown, Janice Y.K. Lee published her debut novel, “The Piano Teacher.”
This book received high praise from many critics and numerous glowing reviews. Her story has struck a resounding chord with readers — it became a best-seller. It has just been re-issued in paperback.
The piano teacher of the title is Claire Pendleton, a young English woman, newly married and recently relocated to Hong Kong.
The year is 1951 and Hong Kong is still rebuilding, recovering from the Japanese occupation that had taken place 10 years before.
Claire is married to Martin, who is in China working on major water projects. Claire finds part-time work giving piano lessons to the young daughter of the Chens, a wealthy Hong Kong family.
Claire’s chance employment leads to a situation where she becomes both an actor and an observer in a drama that began before the war.
The Chens have three chauffeurs. One of them, Will Truesdale, is English. He doesn’t seem to work very much.
Intrigued, Claire finds him attractive and is soon drawn into a clandestine love affair with him.
Claire’s husband is often away on business. He fails to notice that his wife is seeing another man.
Claire becomes increasingly frustrated as Will, her secret lover, so dark, handsome and scarred, is also rather distant. He acts like he doesn’t really care about her.
At this point, the author takes us back 10 years in an extended flashback of the time just before the war when Will was in love with a rich, beautiful, Eurasian woman named Trudy Liang.
In those days, Hong Kong was still a British colony. The author does a lovely job of imagining the glittering social scene of that era.
Trudy and Will were dazzling butterflies flitting through that gilded society. Then the Japanese Army invaded. Will was imprisoned. Trudy remained free, but in order to survive she became a collaborator with the Japanese occupiers.
One Japanese official is determined to locate a valuable collection of ancient Chinese treasures known as the Crown Collection. It had been hidden away prior to the invasion.
This intrigue becomes a shimmering thread that winds through the story and binds many of the characters together.
Claire, the piano teacher, becomes the bit player in this unfolding drama. Through her eyes, we find the continuity that makes this love story-cum-war story coherent. Claire realizes too late.
“ ‘I don’t need you,’ she echoed his words. How porous he seemed, how he always slipped through her grasp.
“Even in their most intimate moments, his face hovering over hers, intense with passion, he was never fully there. Now she understood why: he had always been with another.”
Lee comes up with some tricky plot twists. Her story is potent — she writes with confidence.
Janice Y.K. Lee, no longer an unknown, visits Books & Co. at 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 14, at The Greene in Beavercreek.
Vick Mickunas
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: confessions of a galley slave
Comments
By beastmomma
January 10, 2010 11:54 AM | Link to this
This book sounds fantastic!! Thanks for a good review that just added another book to my to-be-read list!! Oh and Happy New YEAR!
By ohio ex patriate
January 10, 2010 12:36 AM | Link to this
Vick: Off topic, but wanted to say “Thank you” for alerting me of Jim Harrison’s “The Farmer’s Daughter” being on the shelves. Scooped up the only copy at the book store, retired to a local pub and had a wonderful afternoon reading. Again, thank you. Best and stay warm