The Jade Peony: Canada has Read!

Another years worth of Canada Reads in the bag.  The Jade Peony is about a Chinese family in Vancouver during the dirty thirties and forties.

It breaks down into three stories seen through the eyes of the younger siblings of a less than nuclear family.  Each story has an ending that's sort of heartbreaking, you get to watch people get squeezed pretty tight by the community, and though the reader is left with a certain fondness for the overall Chinatown of the author's imagination, the pressure points get rubbed raw.  

I guess there's something to be said for universality, but I thought two of the three crisis were tired.  I won't spoil it, but in terms of plot it's about as close to an episode of Chinese Picket Fences as I've ever wanted to be.  The plot is really just a vehicle for the author to paint a picture of the community and the history of the place.  That doesn't mean there isn't some great characters peopling this book, and lovely descriptions of the time and the place.  I didn't know the first thing about Chinatown, and now I am led to believe I do, such is the veneer of authenticity on these stories.

If I was a betting man, I'd put this book making it deep into the playoffs.  It's not the worst of this year's crop of novels, but it's not really anything special either.