And The Ancestors Sing (publication day 2/3/2026) by Radha Lin Chaddah transported me back to 1978 to post-cultural revolution China, to the farm workers and their families and the newly arrived migrants from the country to the city, and all of the issues they had to deal with. From arranged marriages to prostitution, from earthquakes to human disasters such as mental illness, rape and HIV, the everyday people had to deal with it all.
The author begins with the perspective of a young woman who has just been married to a man she doesn’t know–both are farmworkers, working in the rice fields. She has to live with her husband’s family, as is the custom. Unfortunately the author makes sure to identify the young woman–Lei–as broad and unattractive, in comparison to her sister in law, Her husband, Bo, has a soft spot for his younger sister, who has been spoiled because of her delicate fairness. Looking over them all from his window onto the fields is Farmer Master Wang, a Party member who controls this land in the village of Da Long and all of the people who work the land. Life is generally good for him, except for the embarrassing fact of his odd son, who has seizures and is portrayed as being on the autism spectrum.
Several years later, the story goes to Shanghai, telling the story of Lulu, who has migrated from the country and writes to her parents about her factory job. But really, she’s a prostitute just trying to survive in the city.
Chaddah weaves the two story lines together over time, skipping half a decade or more and picking up the threads of where she left off. I was enthralled, and while some of the issues are difficult, I wanted to find out what happened.
I did not like how fatness was portrayed in a negative light in most situations, either indicating a woman was undesirable, or that another woman was foolish and immature and could be mollified with sweets. While these may have been realistic portrayals of the time and place, I wish Chaddah could have avoided them. But I was completely engrossed in the story.
Overall, I thought it was well-written and I was glad that the author told this story.
Reading While Fat 