It is hard not to be carried away by this tale of friendship and self-discovery amid a righteous cause. There’s a useful reminder here that bravery must be individual before it can become collective.
Wen...wraps an emotionally satisfying coming-of-age tale around a riveting account of the months-long student protests and the horrific, fateful night that Chinese troops cracked down with bullets and tanks ... The novel’s deliberate but surehanded pacing gives these formative moments in Lai’s adolescence an emotional resonance ... The book’s arresting and bloody climax delivers a powerful punch ... Their anguish and desire to be heard are deeply felt.
The result is intimate as well as epic, turning her book from a key testimony of a historic tragedy into a work of finely wrought fiction. Even without the protests, I would have happily read it just for the exquisite coming-of-age novel it is ... Wen keeps her canvas impressively small as she conjures up the spectre of authoritarianism overshadowing her world. Like Ferrante, she revels in the grit of her environment ... The final bravura sequence is as gripping as it is devastating.
Lai (a necessary pseudonym, given Beijing’s continued hostility to critics of the 1989 crackdown) writes with candor and vulnerability as personal and social anxieties blur into political unrest. In its unabashed affection for twentieth-century classics, this tale also reminds us that literature remains a vital means of resistance to anti-democratic forces.
