The Books That Shape The Novel
By Deanna Fei
In the acknowledgments of A Thread of Sky, I list several books that figured in my research. Here are eight more books that helped shape A Thread of Sky.
In the acknowledgments of A Thread of Sky, I list several books that figured in my research. Here are eight more books that helped shape A Thread of Sky.
In this excerpt from A Thread of Sky by Deanna Fei, the family tour of China is half over, and Irene Shen is starting to give up the hope she’s harbored of finally reconnecting with her daughters, her sisters, and her mother in their ancestral home. Now, just when they arrive in the famed city of Hangzhou, said to be China’s most beautiful, they step off the tour bus into a torrential rainstorm.
Like many denizens of our prolific borough, I wrote much of my novel in neighborhood coffee shops. Here are the cafes that should have received my acknowledgment.
My novel, A Thread of Sky, is the story of a family of six strong-willed, Chinese-American women who reunite for a tour of their ancestral home, a story inspired by a tour of China that I undertook ten years ago with the women in my own family. I should mention that it was a package tour; that it was my mother’s idea; and that calling the women in my family “strong-willed” is a bit of an understatement. Here is an excerpt.
Deanna Fei is the author of the novel A Thread of Sky (Penguin Press, 2010), a New York Times Editors’ Choice and an Indie Next Notable Book. She was born in Flushing, New York, and has lived in Beijing and Shanghai, China. A graduate of Amherst College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she has received a Fulbright Grant and a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship. A resident of Prospect Heights, she teaches in public schools and blogs at the Huffington Post.
