Karissa Chen's stunning debut novel, Homeseeking, follows childhood sweethearts Suchi and Haiwen from war-torn Shanghai to the suburbs of Los Angeles, Calif., from 1938 to the mid-2000s. When they meet as children, Suchi is charmed by Haiwen's violin playing; he admires her bold, passionate nature. They fall deeply in love as teenagers, but war and circumstances tear them apart. The story of how they reconnect--and the lives they live in between--is a heartrending yet hopeful saga set against the backdrop of China's complicated 20th-century history.
Alternating between her two protagonists' perspectives, Chen paints a vivid picture of the longtang(neighborhood) where Suchi and Haiwen grow up. She shows their family members, including Haiwen's elegant mother and Suchi's daring older sister, Sulan, through each other's perspectives. Later, Chen takes her protagonists to Taiwan and Hong Kong, bringing them briefly back together before following their separate trajectories to the U.S. Along the way, she explores politics and propaganda; enticing opportunities and the limits of choices; family responsibility and hardship; and the enduring power of a long-ago love.
By the time Suchi and Haiwen reconnect as elders, they have changed: she goes by "Sue," he's "Howard," and they have both seen and suffered much. But Chen gives them, and her readers, a final chance to know and understand the deeper layers of each other's stories. Powerful, heartbreaking, and rich with historical detail, Homeseeking is at once a portrait of a country in turmoil and an intimate, poignant love song. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams