I thought about Lin Daiyu, willing her to come. She could take me out of here and we would float above the world, our bodies as thin as paper, as light as the last day of winter. I wanted to pour myself into her mouth, to sleep inside her body for years and years. For her to grow me inside her. Daiyu is a Chinese girl who's kidnapped from her homeland and taken to late 1800s America, when anti-Asian sentiment is surging throughout the Western frontier. We learn about her and the ghosts she carries with her in "Four Treasures Of The Sky," a surreal and sprawling story spanning two continents. It's historical fiction that lays bare the human tragedy behind the infamous Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. It's also Jenny Tinghui Zhang's debut novel. She joins us now. Welcome.

RASCOE: That's Jenny Tinghui Zhang. Her book is called "Four Treasures Of The Sky." Thanks so much.Brilliant and devastating. Four Treasures of the Sky tells the story of Daiyu, who is brought to America against her will and forced to hide who she is even as she grows into her true self. Weaving together myth and history, Zhang's work is both timeless and utterly necessary right now' - Anna North, author of Outlawed Radiant…A treasure of a debut…[Zhang’s] first novel reveals storytelling skills both vast and specific, bringing shadowy history to light while also displaying a remarkable talent for sensory detail.” ZHANG: Yes, so Lin Daiyu is a character that comes from this novel called "Dream Of The Red Chamber" - "Honglou Meng" in Chinese. It is a real book. It is one of China's four great classic novels. So in my novel, Daiyu is named after this character that comes from this famous novel. And this character, Lin Daiyu - she is a poet. She's the best poet of her time, you could argue. She's also very sensitive, and she has a tragic life in that she's an orphan. Her parents die when she's very young, and she falls in love with her cousin, who ends up marrying a different cousin under false pretenses because he believes that this other cousin is actually Lin Daiyu when it's not. And so when Lin Daiyu learns of this, she dies. So my character, Daiyu, is so aware of the fact that this character she's named after has such a tragic life and a tragic end.

While the others clamor, I remain staring at the fish woman, who continues to rearrange her pile. Her fish are not in a net like the others, but laid out on a tarp. At her shuffling, loose fish slide down from the top of the heap to the tarp’s edge, where they remain vulnerable and unattended. ZHANG: Yeah, absolutely. You know, throughout the book, I start many sections with - this is the story of...

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When the gray-haired man sexually assaults Daiyu in Boise, how does she change? How does that experience continue to impact her for the rest of her life? RASCOE: In this story, you have a ghost form of Lin Daiyu. So this is the character from the famous stories. She appears in your story as a ghost. Like, how do you want the reader to interpret Lin Daiyu the spirit? A] remarkably assured and executed debut...Zhang moves the story forward with an impressive command of tone, detail and emotional register...Even injustice cannot extinguish Daiyu’s spirit, which is what makes Four Treasures of the Sky a rich reading experience. Faced with racism, hatred and fear, Daiyu stands on her own character, as bold and indomitable as one of Master Wang’s perfectly drawn lines.” Zhang’s Four Treasures of the Sky is very much in direct conversation with Dream of the Red Chamber. She uses the character of Lin Daiyu in the original classic as the sometimes alter ego and guiding spirit of the protagonist, also named Daiyu.

Daiyu grows up hating her name and namesake: “Lin Daiyu was weak. I would be nothing like her, I promised myself. I did not want to be melancholic or jealous or spiteful. And I would never let myself die of a broken heart.” What is Daiyu’s relationship to Lin Daiyu, and how does it change over the course of the novel? Do you agree with Daiyu’s assessment that Lin Daiyu “was no heroine”?

Reader Reviews

When I am kidnapped, I am thirteen and standing in the middle of the Zhifu fish market on Beach Road, watching a fleshy woman assemble white fish the shape of spades into a pile. The woman squats, her knees in her armpits, rearranging the fish so the best ones rise to the top. I am so sorry, Brother Eng, she says, bowing. So dark in here, and the fish are making me light-headed. I will send Master Eng my best fish to make up for this terrible mistake. Daiyu is a wonderful and beautiful character who throughout her journey never really loses her sense of hope and wonder or her ability to love and be kind even when faced with the worst of people. She represents the best of youth and character and you want the absolute best for her. The side characters involved are written richly and create a great sense of a real community which is facing such deep opposition to their very existence. At their hearing, Caroline Foster testifies that Nelson wanted to remove her father as an obstacle to their love. This testimony provides a possible motive, which is all the angry people of Pierce need to send them to trial. On their way to their trial in a neighboring town, Sheriff Bates delivers the men to the KKK. Without trial or evidence, the white-hooded men hang Daiyu and her friends.