Su Lan gives birth in the middle of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Years later, her daughter, Liya, takes her mother's ashes back to China, and sets out on a course of discovery—who was the enigmatic woman that was her mother?
Little Gods is a haunting debut about memory, history, and who we truly are.
Told through multiple narrators, Jin tells Su Lan's story: Zhu Wen was the last woman to know her before she left China, and Yongzong was a former classmate (and Liya's father that she never met). Using Zhu Wen and Yongzong was an effective way for Liya to learn about her mother—Su Lan was a scientist, a woman hesitant to embrace motherhood, and someone with a deep connection to her past. The reader experiences the revelations the same time as Liya, feeling her emotions, and the disconnect and displacement that she endures.
The writing style was problematic because there were no quotations around the dialogue. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. I never understand why someone would willingly choose to confuse the reader. And who decides this? Is it the writer, or is it the editor? This is incredibly distracting and it diminished the story.
If you like a complex, character-driven narrative than you will appreciate the beauty of this thought-provoking debut. Little Gods explores themes of grief, the immigrant experience, and the complicated bond between mothers and daughters.
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MENG JIN is the author of Little Gods and a graduate of Harvard and Hunter College.
Jin was born in Shanghai and lives in San Francisco.
A special thank you to Edelweiss and HarperCollins for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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