![]() In 1989, when Vancouver-raised Marie is 10, her father, Jiang Kai, travels to Hong Kong, where he commits suicide. The book opens with Jiang Li-Ling, or – to use her Canadian name – Marie Jiang. Notes at the end identify the sources of quotations in addition to Thien’s own immaginative narrative, massive research was undertaken in the writing of this novel. Time shifts back and forth within chapters, and the focus shuffles among several characters in two connected families. This is followed by a coda that concludes the novel. The next section, called Part Zero, reverses the order, counting down from seven to one. Part One contains eight chapters, which are numbered sequentially. Do Not Say We Have Nothing examines the lives of musicians in 20th-century China, and the effect of the monumental political changes that had ruinous effects on people’s lives. The structure of the novel gives a clue to its complexity. Nevertheless, the book is worth the effort because of the richness of detail the author provides. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() There is so much going on in Madeleine Thien’s third novel that it’s hard, at times, to keep things straight. ![]()
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