The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, by Lisa See. Sime & Schuster, 2017

Li-yan and Haley live very different lives. Although both are of the Akha people, they are a generation apart: Li-yan is Haley’s mother, although they have been separated since Haley was a few days old. Haley grows up in the Los Angeles area in an upper middle class home; Li-yan grew up without plumbing or electricity. All that connects them is a cake of pu-erh tea that Li-yan left with Haley at the orphanage, and has, miraculously, stayed with her.

Li-yan starts her life in the Akha people, a small group living in the mountains between Thailand and Laos and the Yunnan district of China. Even in 1995 their lives are almost Stone Age; they have no modern conveniences, still wear traditional dress, have their medical problems dealt with by a wise woman, and abide by traditional Akha laws and superstitions. Pretty much their only contact with the 20^th century is when they sell the tea that they pick from their small allotments. Li-yan’s life seems to be set: as the daughter of the wise woman/midwife, she will step up to that job when her time comes.

Three things change Li-yan’s life forever. She is very good with languages and is sent on to college, where she first encounters a flush toilet. She has the misfortune of falling in love with the wrong man; she was born on a Pig Day, while San-pa is born on a Tiger Day. They are mismatched and cannot wed- but they secretly have a child together. And one day a jeep comes rattling into the village bearing a man who wants to buy their tea directly rather than going through the middleman. He knows they have special teas, from special, old trees, that will be worth a fortune on the open market. All these things combine to end up making Li-yan a woman of both China and America.

Lisa See has dealt with Chinese women coming to terms with being in America in ‘China Dolls’; in that book, it was WW 2. ‘Tea Girl’ deals with it in 1995 to the present day. The children adopted by white Americans (almost always girls) face different challenges growing up than the Chinese who arrived as adults in earlier years- easier in a lot of ways, but not knowing why they were given up and what kind of linage they might have.

The plotting is so complex in this book it can be hard to keep track of, but it all comes together in the end perfectly. The descriptions of life in the forest village bring the place to life. Li-yan is a very complex character and the others are pretty vivid, too, especially Li-yan’s mother. Five stars out of five- not surprising for a book by Lisa See!

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Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8: A Young Man’s Voice From the Silence of Autism, by Naoki Higashida. Translated by KA Yoshida & David Mitchell. Random House, 2017

Higashida is on the spectrum; he was nonverbal for a long time and even today he struggles with expressing himself verbally; he has what he calls restricted speech. He finds it easier many times to use his computer or a spelling board to communicate. When he was thirteen he wrote his first book, ‘The Reason I Jump’ to try and explain some of his actions to neurotypical folks. His new book, written as a 24 year old, takes that further, telling us what it’s like to live in his world. It includes some of his ‘aha’ moments, when he figured out things that most of us take for granted. His is a life of anxiety and distractions coming from his own brain. He absolutely doesn’t feel sorry for himself, though; while he’s unhappy with parts of his life- like his inability to properly express to his mother how grateful he is to her- he is in general upbeat. I found it very interesting that he has obsessions that have to be dealt with to stay calm- as one with OCD myself, I could certainly those, as well as his sensory overload.

The book is written in short chapters; some only a couple of pages long. Many are posts from his blog, so this gives a bit of a disjointed feeling reading the book.  The translators have a child on the spectrum themselves, and I suspect this gave them a special attachment to this project. I recommend this book to anyone with a family member or friend on the spectrum, especially if that person has trouble communicating. Five stars. 

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The Essex Serpent, by Sarah Perry. Custom House, 2016

When Cora Seaborne’s husband dies, no one in the household is sorry. He was a sadistic and abusive man, who leaves Cora with scars both physical and mental to remember him by. But he also leaves her with a bit of money, so she no longer has to stay in the mansion with the bad memories; she, her autistic son Francis, and her socialist companion Martha move to a village in Essex, where she hopes to find fossils like Mary Anning is doing. There she meets the Ransomes: William the vicar, his wife Stella, and their three children. Cora and Stella immediately take to each other as if they had grown up together; Cora and William find themselves in a different sort of friendship, arguing in a jovial way, frequently via letter. But all is not fun and games in Aldwinter; the legendary Essex sea monster (a real bit of Essex folklore) seems to be back, drowning young men, stealing goats, and generally scaring the people silly even though no one has seen it.

This is a book you climb into and live in with the characters. The descriptions of nature, of people, and especially of Stella are the literary equivalent of pre-Raphaelite paintings; exquisitely detailed and saturated with life. There is a great cast of characters, and intellectual and social issues are explored. I loved this novel; there is a lot of depth to it. Five stars. 

The above is an affiliate link. If you click through and buy something- anything- from Amazon, they will give me a few cents. 

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Neither of these things influenced my review.