The Distant Land of My Father: A Novel

Bo Caldwell

Apr 2011 · Chronicle Books

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An ambitious man and his adoring daughter are separated and estranged by an ocean and by the tides of history in this “marvelous” novel (Los Angeles Times).

For Anna Schoene, growing up in the magical world of Shanghai in the 1930s creates a special bond between her and her father. He is the son of missionaries, a smuggler, and a millionaire who leads a charmed but secretive life. When the family flees to Los Angeles in the face of the Japanese occupation, he chooses to stay, believing his connections and luck will keep him safe.

He’s wrong—but he survives, only to again choose Shanghai over his family during the Second World War. Anna and her father reconnect late in his life, when she finally has a family of her own, but it is only when she discovers his extensive journals that she is able to fully understand him and the reasons for his absences. The Distant Land of My Father is a “beautiful” novel “for everyone who has ever felt himself in exile from any beloved place, or a time that can never return” (The Washington Post Book World).

“Seamlessly weaves together Anna’s own memories with those of her father, gleaned from the journals . . . An elegant, refined story of families, wartime, and the mystique of memory.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Vivid with details of prewar Shanghai and Los Angeles.” —Publishers Weekly

“Lush and epic.” —San Jose Mercury News

“Remarkable . . . A moving tale of love and the possibility of forgiveness.” —Library Journal

Autoren-Profil

BO CALDWELL is the author of The Distant Land of My Father and City of Tranquil Light. A graduate of Stanford University, where she later held a Wallace Stegner Fellowship and a Jone Lectureship in Creative Writing, her honors include the Georgia Shreve Prize in Fiction at Stanford University, and the Joseph Henry Jackson Award from the San Francisco Foundation. Caldwell has written personal essays for O, The Oprah Magazine, the Washington Post Magazine, and America Magazine, and her short stories have been published in such literary journals as Story, Ploughshares, and Epoch. She lives in Northern California with her husband, novelist Ron Hansen.