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    The Fortunes
    The Fortunes
    The Fortunes
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Fortunes

    Written by Peter Ho Davies

    Narrated by James Chen

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    A New York Times Editors' Choice
    A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2016

    “Davies writes with a rare emotional resonance and a deft sense of structure; it's hard not to be in awe of the way he's composed this complex, beautiful novel . . . Stunning.” —NPR

    “Davies [is] a master storyteller.” —Entertainment Weekly

    Sly, funny, intelligent, and artfully structured, The Fortunes recasts American history through the lives of Chinese Americans and reimagines the multigenerational novel through the fractures of immigrant family experience.

    Inhabiting four lives—a railroad baron’s valet who unwittingly ignites an explosion in Chinese labor, Hollywood’s first Chinese movie star, a hate-crime victim whose death mobilizes Asian Americans, and a biracial writer visiting China for an adoption—this novel captures and capsizes over a century of our history, showing that even as family bonds are denied and broken, a community can survive—as much through love as blood.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateSep 6, 2016
    ISBN9781531824358
    Author

    Peter Ho Davies

    PETER HO DAVIES’s novel, The Fortunes, won the Anisfield-Wolf Award and the Chautauqua Prize and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. He is also the author of The Welsh Girl, long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and a London Times best-seller, as well as two critically acclaimed collections of short stories. His fiction has appeared in Harpers, the Atlantic, the Paris Review, and Granta and has been anthologized in Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards and The Best American Short Stories.

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    Reviews for The Fortunes

    4/5

    63 ratings7 reviews

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    • 3/5
      the first part was great, if a little too neatly tied up and not subtle; the next part was told in a style and a voice I found so off-putting for some reason I was soured on the rest of it.
    • 4/5
      The four sections present aspects of the lives of the Chinese who immigrated to the US and their descendants. While the opportunities available in each succeeding story, mid 19th century, early and late 20th, and 21st century are increased, the horrendous cost of being considered alien, even in your own birth country, is staggering. None of the characters is entirely comfortable in there own skin and the weight of the other-ing they have endured and will continue to endure is passed on to the reader. But the four narrators are startling different individuals, the first two active and angry, the second two more cautious observers, once again, not in the same ways. The writing went with the oppressive mood, more dreamy than brisk for sure, and the only humor were the resented ethnic jokes, and the brittle riffs of Anna May Wong.
    • 4/5
      In the stories of 4 Chinese Americans, Peter Ho Davies has create a story of the Chinese in America. The stories can be read as stand-alone books, as there is no relationship between the characters, but by picking and choosing what you read, the meaning of the books will be missed, that of not fitting in.
    • 4/5
      They – all of them – are Chinese American now, not just because America has finally, begrudgingly, allowed them to be, but because China has closed to them.I have been reading this book for a while. I borrowed it in December, read it a little, put it down and picked it up in between and amongst all those other books I read throughout these seven weeks. It’s a book that spans generations, so perhaps it is fitting that it crossed over from 2016 to 2017 with me.The Fortunes tells the Chinese-American story. Four stories in particular. I guess you could describe it as a collection of four novellas.The first is Ah Ling (who is a real life but little known figure, as Davies explains in an interview) a young man who arrives from China in the 1850s to seek his fortune in San Francisco, which till today is still known in Chinese as 旧金山 (jiu jin shan or old gold mountain). He works for rail magnate Charles Crocker and his strength and ability to work hard (Chinese at that time were thought to be physically weak) convinces Crocker to recruit Chinese workers to build his railway. “unique among all immigrants, they were the ones who looked to leave, to take their wealth home with them. It offended settlers, this sojourner attitude, exemplified by the very bones Ling helped to send back to China”.Following that is a section devoted to real life actress Anna May Wong, a laundryman’s daughter who became the first Chinese-American film star, acting in Douglas Fairbanks’ The Thief of Baghdad. Fascinatingly, at the time there was a law preventing her from sharing a kiss with an actor of a different race (even if they were in yellowface). The biggest disappointment of her career was in 1935 when German actress Luise Rainer was chosen to play O-Lan in the film version of The Good Earth. Rainer went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for that role."Reviewers praised her as “naturally Chinese” and “an exquisite crier, without the need for glycerine.” She was possessed of a “porcelain pulchritude.”"Then we learn about Vincent Chin, a young man living in Detroit who in 1982 was beaten to death by two autoworkers who mistook him for Japanese, who were blamed for the layoffs in Detroit’s auto industry. The two men were arrested but because of a plea bargain were sentenced to just 3 years’ probation. A federal civil rights’ case against the men found one guilty and sentenced to 25 years, but a federal appeals court overturned the conviction in 1984. This story is told from the perspective of Vincent’s friend, who was there when the beating happened, who was also chased by the two men, but who didn’t fight back.The thing about racism, I always think, the worst thing, okay, is not that someone has made up their mind about you without knowing you, based on the colour of your skin, the way you look, some preconception. The worst thing is that they might be right. Stereotypes cling if they have a little truth; they sting by the same token.The last section of the book follows a couple, the man half-Chinese, the woman white, who are in China to adopt a baby. John finds his own Chinese heritage called into question, feels ashamed that the other couples, who are not Chinese, know more about Chinese culture than he does, that he doesn’t know how to speak Chinese, although when he went to Caltech for college, he first learnt of the term banana:"meaning yellow on the outside, white on the inside, but he’d secretly welcomed its aptness. As far as he was concerned, his skin had always been something to trip on."It’s all rather grim. The four stories (novellas?) are filled with this air of anger, disillusionment, bitterness and irony that fills these lives, these stories. There is humour, but of a rather uncomfortable sort,“Chinese in movies aren’t inscrutable,” she lamented drily. “They’re unscrewable.” But in life the ban on mixed marriage made her the perfect mistress, one who could never expect to wed her lovers.And I found myself learning a lot of racist jokes too. But let’s not repeat those.There is no doubt that this is an important book. It opens eyes to these historical figures in Chinese-American history, which perhaps many of us do not know much of, or know of at all. It’s made me want to read more about this country I now live in, about these historical figures that Davies brings to life in this book."This was the season of the sandlot riots, of The Chinese Must Go! The Chinese might have physically united the country by building a railroad across it, but now they were uniting it in another sense, binding the quarreling tribes of Irish and English, French and Germans, Swedes and Italians together against a common enemy.We made them white, Ling thought." A possible reading listUnraveling the “Model Minority” Stereotype: Listening to Asian American Youth – Stacey J. LeeYellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White – Frank WuAsian American Dreams – Helen ZiaStrangers from a Different Shore – Ronald TakakiThe Making of Asian America: A History – Erika Lee
    • 3/5
      Davies, Peter Ho. The Fortunes. 9 CDs. unabridged. 2016. 10 3/4 hrs. Brilliance Audio. ISBN. 9781531824365. $29.99. Davies (The Welsh Girl) deftly weaves together four stories of the Chinese American experience to create a rich tapestry of what it takes to find acceptance in oneself and in one's country. A nineteenth century laundry worker, a Chinese film star, a friend of someone killed in a hate crime, and a half-Chinese man looking to adopt a Chinese baby; tell their stories of life in America and how their "Chinese-ness" has helped defined their American experience. Their stories are all uniquely different, yet uniquely the same; racism, questions of identity, the need for acceptance, the need to be "all-American" surface in all four stories. Raw, witty, honest, and unflinching, The Fortunes manages to capture the heart of growing up Chinese American in this powerful novel. Impressively narrated by the talented, James Chen, who brings an authenticity to the story with his numerous accents and reserved, yet powerful telling of the story. Davies proves that he's a masterful storyteller in this emotionally gripping novel. - Erin Cataldi, Johnson Co. Public Library, Franklin, IN
    • 4/5
      3.5 Ling and the section Gold was by far my favorite and if the others were as good as this one I would have given it an unequivocal four star rating. Did like the structure of this novel, the different sections that tied to the others, though sometimes it was hard to find the connection. The second section about the first Chinese actress I did not like the way it was written and did not care for the character. The third and fourth sections were just okay for me. Overall the book did a good job relating the Chinese American experience, and I found that interesting.The first though, Ling is a fantastic character, and he changes as does his viewpoint as the story progresses. The hard life he led and the realizations he comes to, the building by the Chinese of the railroad and the conditions they worked under. How the Chinese like other immigrant groups were exploited. Beautifully written, this author does have talent. So a mixed reception from me, but the first story is well worth reading.ARC from Netgalley.
    • 4/5
      The Fortunes by Peter Ho Davies are four different stories about Chinese Americans. They are Gold: Celestial Railroad, Silver: Your Name in Chinese, Jade: Fast as Lightning and Pearl: Disorientation. All the stories are written with great skill, thought and feeling. All of them are engrossing. I don’t read stories as much as full books because if they are great, I go through a mourning period when the story is done and I have to let go of my connection with the main character. That happened this time. Each character is very developed and you feel like you are there with that person in their shoes as their lives move on. One theme that runs through the stories is of not fitting in. In Pearl, John Smith has a white father and Chinese mother. When he was in the United States, he was thought of by others as being Chinese, when he was in China, he was thought as being American. It is a strange situation of looking one way and being another. That story really clicked with me because my husband is Chinese American and he had round eyes. So he has never fit anywhere either. I do not feel compelled to discuss all of the stories, I want them to be a surprise for you. One that really impressed me was a fictionalized biographical sketch of Anna May Wong. I have a book of early Hollywood Stars with several pictures of her. I felt sad for her. She was bullied at school and by her father at home. She escaped into movie theaters and enjoyed the safety of being invisible. When you are the audience, people are not watching you. She thought about how wonderful it would be to be stared at because you were a star. She was acting during periods of great prejudice against Asians and by her playing the roles, she made them real to the audience. A short aside. I did not realize that President Hoover and his wife knew Mandarin and communicated in it when they wanted to keep something secret from the White House staff. I know some Mandarin too and at several of the wedding parties, I heard myself talked about. That was very enlightening. Made me feel like a spy! I highly recommend this group of stories if you are interested in stepping in another’s shoes or just want to understand part of what goes on when you become American.I received this Advanced Reading Copy by making a selection from Amazon Vine books but that in no way influenced my thoughts or feelings in this review. I also posted this review only on sites meant for reading not for selling.