Toby Martin

Well, I totally agree with you.

It's like the subject matter is harrowing, but she has a very impressive, almost light touch to the way she writes.

So it doesn't feel like it's – even though the subject matter is extremely full on, it's told in this very deft kind of way.

Yeah, I suppose for me the part that probably was the most memorable was the part about the land seizures in the 1950s.

So when those who are seen as to be bourgeois landowners were kind of turfed out of their houses often, and in this case, members of her family murdered and the rest of her family sort of scattered and fleeing for their lives.

So that was, you know, the catalogue of very full-on stuff that happens in the novel.

That was the part, I suppose, that really I remember the best, I think.

Definitely.

I mean, I think the structure is very ingenious, that this very complicated and complex history is told through women

the things that Huang hears, you know, stories told to her or letters she reads or a diary she reads.

So it all comes sort of through her.

And, yeah, I think by doing so you get this very strong sense of the chaos and randomness of war, you know, seeing it through the eyes of someone who's between the ages of sort of 12 and 15, you know, 16.

These events kind of happen.

And they're chaotic and they don't make sense, which I think is possibly the way, you know, it seems to be a really authentic way of things are experienced.

The women characters are so incredibly strong and resilient characters, particularly the grandmother character.

Her story is really amazing and the kind of sacrifices she has to make and the decisions she has to make really without giving too much away.

These decisions about leaving members of her family to protect them and those kinds of things, which are so difficult to make, but she does them and she's a very strong person.

It's really interesting that you mentioned the acknowledgements at the front of the page because I, after finishing the book, I read the acknowledgements at the back of the book, you know, the more kind of, you know, thanks to the publishers and these people.

But in that, you know, in there she says, you know, this being my first work of historical fiction.

So she actually, you know, she uses that term.