Book: The Long March Home by Zoë S Roy

categories: Book, The Cultural Revolution, Interracial Marriage, Intergenerational Relations, Women Missionaries, Chinese American, Family Saga, Maoist China, Women's Fiction, Women Travelers, Women's Literature, Anti-Revolutionary, Historical Novel

Zoë S. Roy

about her book: The Long March Home is a saga of three generations of the women in China and North America spanning from the 1920s to 1980s.

The novel explores the growth of Yezi, a young girl of a mixed parentage during the Cultural Revolution. When her mother is accused of being an American spy suspect and incarcerated and her father is confined as a labeled rightist, Yao, the family illiterate maid, shields Yezi and her brother from poverty and political discrimination. After joining her grandmother in Boston, Yezi starts her new life and learns about her family history. The novel also portrays the encounters of Yezi's America-born mother, Mayflora, during her search for her birth father in China. Besides, the novel reveals the missionary experience and love story of Yezi's Canadian grandmother, Agnes, with the West China Mission and her life in America. After the long journey these three generations reach their home.

Readers who are interested in women's experiences in different cultures, social and political environments at different historical periods would enjoy this novel very much.