Where Waters Meet by Zhang Ling

 

Where Waters Meet by Zhang Ling.

Published 1st May 2023 by Amazon Crossing.

From the cover of the book:

A daughter discovers the dramatic history that shaped her mother’s secret life in an emotional and immersive novel by Zhang Ling, the bestselling author of A Single Swallow.

There was rarely a time when Phoenix Yuan-Whyller’s mother, Rain, didn’t live with her. Even when Phoenix got married, Rain, who followed her from China to Toronto, came to share Phoenix’s life. Now at the age of eighty-three, Rain’s unexpected death ushers in a heartrending separation.

Struggling with the loss, Phoenix comes across her mother’s suitcase―a memory box Rain had brought from home. Inside, Phoenix finds two old photographs and a decorative bottle holding a crystallized powder. Her auntie Mei tells her these missing pieces of her mother’s early life can only be explained when they meet, and so, clutching her mother’s ashes, Phoenix boards a plane for China. What at first seems like a daughter’s quest to uncover a mother’s secrets becomes a startling journey of self-discovery.

Told across decades and continents, Zhang Ling’s exquisite novel is a tale of extraordinary courage and survival. It illuminates the resilience of humanity, the brutalities of life, the secrets we keep and those we share, and the driving forces it takes to survive.

***********

Phoenix Yuan-Whyller has spent most of her life living in close quarters with her mother, Rain. When Phoenix made the move from China to Toronto, her mother was not far behind, and it was only natural that when Phoenix married audiologist George in her fifties, that Rain would be part of the package too.

Rain has now passed away at the age of eighty-three, after succumbing to dementia, having spent her last few years in a nursing home. Overcome with grief, Phoenix is struggling with her loss. She feels an unexpected resentment towards George because Rain spent her final years in a place where she could not always be with her in her increasingly rare lucid moments, and she does not know how to even begin to move on.

After Phoenix retrieves her mother's belongings from the nursing home, it is some time before she can bring heself to open her battered suitcase - the 'memory box' Rain brought all the way with her from China. Tucked inside Rain's clothes she finds two old photographs and a bottle containing a crystallised powder that she cannot identify. There is a mystery to be solved here, but the only person Phoenix can ask about the meaning of these momentoes is her mother's sister Mei, who still lives in China.

Mei tells Phoenix that there are things Rain kept hidden from her and the truth about her mother's early life can only be shared face to face. Armed with an urn containing Rain's ashes, Phoenix flies to China to discover her mother's secrets, and in the process goes on a journey of self-discovery. 

Where Waters Meet is an epic story of sacrifice and survival that delves back into China's modern history, following the tales of mother and daughter, Rain and Phoenix. The format is striking, being made up of Phoenix's narration, epistolary sections, and extracts of the book she decides to write about her experiences and all she learns about her mother from Mei.

It does take a while to get into the rhythm, but this format works surprisingly well, as each section exploring the past is told via Phoenix's 'book within a book', with an introduction to each one in the form of email conversations between her and George. Phoenix begins with her own childhood, then as Mei reveals the truth about Rain's (and her own) past in increasingly traumatic stages, Phoenix tells the story of her mother's survival through years of tumultuous Chinese history marked with war, politics, famine, and terrible crimes inflicted by the powerful on the powerless.

As the story unfurls, Phoenix begins to realise that there are many things she did not know about her mother, some of which explain why Rain was so haunted by a past that became more real to her when she retreated into her memories as dementia took hold. Phoenix also finds herself questioning her recollections about about her childhood in a way which enables her to put painful memories of her own in perspective. 

I really enjoyed the way this story is constructed. Zhang Ling draws you inexorably back in time with each section of the story, and the full significance of objects, scattered conversations, and recurring characters only becomes clear when you come full circle at the end of the novel. It is beautifully done, and there is something magical about the way the waves of intense emotion hit you as each successive piece of the puzzle falls into place.

This novel is spellbinding. It deftly explores love, loss, identity, coming of age, and the relationship between mothers and daughters, while also confronting some very uncomfortable history. It will both profoundly move you and send you down multiple rabbit holes about the things you discover...

Where Waters Meet is available to preorder now in hardcover, paperback, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Amazon Crossing for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review, and to FMcM Associates for inviting me to join this blog tour.

About the author:

Zhang Ling is the award-winning author of nine novels and numerous collections of novellas and short stories, including A Single Swallow, translated by Shelly Bryant; Gold Mountain Blues; and Aftershock, which was adapted into China’s first IMAX movie with unprecedented box-office success. 

Born in China, she moved to Canada in 1986 and, in the mid-1990s, began to write and publish fiction in Chinese while working as a clinical audiologist. Since then, she has won the Chinese Media Literature Award for Author of the Year, the Grand Prize of Overseas Chinese Literary Award, and China Times’s Open Book Award. 

Where Waters Meet is her first novel written in English.