Katherine

The clash between the centuries-old mystical traditions of Communist China and modern American ways, the balm and destruction offered by obsession, and the universal drama of love and betrayal all come to vivid life in Katherine, the first novel by the author of the remarkable autobiography, Red Azalea. A young American woman comes to China to teach English, encountering a generation steeped in the brutality of the Cultural Revolution. Katherine's auburn hair, her alluring free spirit, and the tantalizing energies of Western culture embodied in her Beatles recordings awaken a latent eroticism in the men and women she meets, inspiring a doomed love triangle whose consequences are insidious and tragic. As in Red Azalea, a narrative flair and exhilarating prose illuminate the unique and compelling perspective of the author, a woman whose early life was dramatically, inexorably dominated by the turmoil and oppression of Maoist China.