![]() ![]() It’s as if the two are one and the same.Ī compelling portrait of the Chinese diaspora experience that doesn’t quite land as either literary fiction or thriller.Įxes pretend they’re still together for the sake of their friends on their annual summer vacation. Their nuanced views of their own lives do not extend to China’s politics or even the fact that they aren’t really working for China but rather for a corporation-China Poly. While restoring the fountainheads to China is ethically sound, why do they buy into this brawn-before-brain method of retribution? The characters themselves admit that most successful art repatriations have come about by orchestrated public outcry. Moreover, Li’s characters are so educated, career driven, and emotionally aware that it’s hard to believe they would agree to jeopardize their futures by doing the heist in the first place. The problem is that these sections gum up the pace of the thriller. ![]() The characters’ meditations on the loss and hybridity of their identity-never feeling fully at home in China or America-are spot-on. For each, the payout represents a release from the pressures they associate with Chinese diaspora identity: achieving financial success and making a name for themselves. If Will and his crew can recover all five pieces, they’ll split a $50 million payout. The novel’s title, therefore, refers to not only the idealistic heisters, but also the art museums that knowingly purchased China’s stolen artifacts. ![]() These real-life fountainheads were looted from Beijing’s Old Summer Palace by the French and British in 1860 during the Second Opium War. Will and four other Chinese American college students-Will’s sister and several acquaintances-have been contracted by China’s youngest billionaire, the CEO of a shadowy company called China Poly, to steal five bronze fountainheads from museums around the world and return them to China. The problem: He’s actually running the heist. He quickly finds himself caught up in the investigation. While working at Harvard’s Sackler Museum, Will Chen, a senior majoring in art history, witnesses a robbery of Chinese art. A debut novel calls out institutionalized imperialism in the Western world. ![]()
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