Strong Women

In Women of the Silk, Gail Tsukiyama tells what life was like for girls like Pei, our main character. Raised on a small rural farm that had fish and mulberry leaves for its cash crops, she was taken by her father one morning to the nearby town. Without any idea of what was happening, she was dropped off at the factory dormitory. She was eight years old.

The other girls and young women, all in the same situation befriended her.  The relationships among them unfold against the backdrop of the silk factory.  We learn how silk was produced and the conditions of factory life. 

This segment of Pei’s life ends when she is in her 20s and escapes to Hong Kong to avoid the Japanese who have invaded China. I wonder if the author’s Chinese ancestors had direct experience with this time as she has written before about the brutality of the Japanese army.

Morgan was interested in rare manuscripts and had haphazardly amassed a valuable collection.  He was looking for a librarian to bring some order to it when his nephew introduced him to Belle.  She was a jewel.  Not only did she catalog his acquisitions, she also guided him in adding to his collection.  Rare books, first printings from the original printing press, illuminated manuscripts, all were her forté. She could spot a forgery or misrepresentation. Plus, she was a skilled negotiator when most women, in the early 1900s, just didn’t do that sort of thing.

The second story in this book of historical fiction was about Belle’s personal life.  She was born a “colored girl” in the South just after Reconstruction.  Her educated parents enjoyed success in that period, a respite between slavery and Jim Crow.

As Reconstruction passed and federal troops left the South, segregation and prejudice once again became ascendant. The family moved north and faced a choice.  They were light skinned and could pass as white.  Should they?  Belle’s father said no and fought for equality.  Her mother, less optimistic, said yes and took the children, thus giving them opportunities they never would have had.  Belle, moving in sophisticated circles in a high-powered job, presented herself as white with a Portuguese ancestor to account for her darker skin. 

The private library she directed became public one hundred years ago.  As part of its centennial celebration last year, there was an exhibit honoring Belle, acknowledging her accomplishments and mixed-race background. Her secret had been kept until 1999 when a Morgan researcher discovered her birth certificate listing her as “colored” and naming her father, Richard Greener, who was a well-known black advocate for racial justice.

This newest detective, Matthew, was raised in an evangelical community in rural England where he found belonging and acceptance until he came out as gay and married his love.  Shunned by the church and rejected by his parents, he found a new community in the police force and rose to the rank of detective inspector.

In this story he and his two sergeants are called to solve the murder of a popular sailing figure, dead in a small boat apparently arranged to be found.  Matthew remembers the place.  It was here that he spent a happy childhood as part of the Brethren. But now, pouring rain, roaring winds, and high tides add to the gloomy atmosphere as the three officers follow a dangerous trail that twists through old flames, jealousy, illness and aging.

This one tells the story of a man who visited the undersea dragon palace.  After being entertained there for a few days, he returned home to find he had been gone three hundred years. I was reminded of our Rip Van Winkle story and interested to see the same fable about this modern physics concept (of time moving at different speeds), in two very different cultures.