Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

A new Xinran book with her interest in the exploration of Chinese culture and people through the experiences of women is always to be welcomed. Her long residence in Britain (albeit with regular returns) seems to give her the distance now to create a detailed overview but also to recognise the speed of the evolving of the various cultures there. But the perspective of this text seems to be formulated through the loss of her husband that has led her to review the nature of Chinese marriage and love and further through her awareness of the loss of her own family narrative of the past. Loss of this kind is not restricted to her alone of course, she recognises that through the various violent disturbances in China over the last century that this will be replicated through most other families, particularly as it became expedient to “forget” or silence thought. Coupled with the deliberate destructions of cultural assets throughout the Cultural Revolution the rapid transfer of the Chinese economy from substantially a rural one to a modern urban one means the increasing loss of knowledge of culture, traditions and religions that were first embedded in the prehistoric past and continued until relatively recently. Personal testimonies of a rapidly dying older generation are now the most important link.
By a simple co-incidence as Xinran is starting to explore changing responses to love and marriage she is introduced the widow of a man who rose (albeit at great risk) to become a senior cadre of the Communist party. She will reluctantly start to tell of her life and will introduce Xinran to a younger sister who will be the link to testimonies first of her daughter and then of a small cluster of other female relatives. There is apparently a Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times” – it would be fair to say that these women – the rarer survivors of a larger family network – certainly did. The scale of the disruptions, violence and changes in China over the last 100 years has meant that even sisters could have radically different experiences and tales and this is certainly shown here. The family was dispersed – some to death or “disappearance” others to Hong Kong, Taiwan and other countries around the world but Xinran chooses those that speak to the deep changes in approaches to marriage (previously bedded deep in the historical past) and “love”.
This book is highly informative as to the culture of the increasingly powerful super-power China which for many people worldwide is seen as both alien but increasingly intrusive. But it also speaks to the reality of personal lives and allows the reader to understand the differences between the “official” political lines and the day to day realities people will have gone through. For people who have never lived through war this in itself will be an eye-opening read, but the showcasing of the added parameter of the depth and values of old Chinese culture that have been casually discarded – and indeed the speed with which history and culture can be destroyed is eye-watering and chilling. The general contempt for individual people is obvious, but now the safety net of “family” has been largely destroyed too.
A review that did not give details of at least some of the women who gave testimony – often in painful (to them) detail, would be a lack so I will mention the first - “Red” - born in 1920, to a wealthy and cultured family that starts to struggle though the years of the “warlords” and is torn apart by the Japanese invasion and civil wars to follow. She is persuaded that is a good idea to marry a colleague. He, “in love” with another women missing from his life, will refuse to consummate the marriage. Married for 60 years she will talk to Xinran of her emotionally sparse private and “public” life as they traversed the risks of a country at war, in active civil war, through the imposition of the “Communist” regime and on into the “new economic development”. This in itself is a deeply interesting tale. We are then introduced to sister “Green” born in 1932. She surviving the Japanese invasion will face her teenage years, trained as a communist, during the Civil War with all its risks. Married with young children her husband is accused of being a spy and beaten to death – she has to survive this grief and the threats to herself and children. The tales of younger relatives follow. Xinran while allowing the women to speak of specific parts of their lives gives just enough political background for the general reader to understand not just the politics but the sheer randomness of risk and survival – and of course the inexorable strengths of the changes.
This makes for an extraordinary book and a read that is both important – at a personal and political levels - but deeply compelling throughout. This is definitely one to read, but also to buy and gift, too, to any serious reader who has not heard of this first rate writer. One who understands the things that are really important in life.

The Promise gives an insight into the China we rarely hear about.
Exploring the relationships through four generations of women - Xinran Xue provides a deep and yet richly narrated non fiction text which details love, heartbreak, relationships and revolution.

It was at times hard to read, very emotional and raw.

I really enjoyed The Promise, it was enlightening and informative.

This book opened my eyes and broke my heart in equal measure. When I first started reading I wondered why I had requested a copy of this, as I have such little interest in politics, and I’ll admit I found the political elements of this book difficult to keep up with, but at its heart this is a book about love, a universal theme.
This is the story of four generations of Chinese women, and how the political landscape and familial expectations affected the way they loved - we begin with the story of Red, an 80-something virgin who has been in an arranged marriage all her life to a man in love with someone else, and finish with 3 of the latest generation who are experimenting with online dating and flash marriages.
There is a lot of tragedy and heartbreak in this story, from unrequited love to the horrors of revolution, but there is also beauty in the strength of many of the relationships, and I loved the poetry that tied so many of the generations together. I found this absolutely engrossing and harrowing, but also found that it shone a light on the best of humanity as so many of these stories were full of selfless, warm and kind people living in the best way they could. I cried, I learnt a lot and I think this one will stay with me for a very long time - an absolute must read.

Xinran’s latest is a labour of love. She has worked on it since spring 2013, since when several of its subjects have died, as well as her husband, legendary literary agent Toby Eady, who is memorialised in the foreword and afterword (and occasionally in the narrative). Xinran’s heart is on every page, as is her love – for her husband, for women, and for Chinese women in particular, who have been her perennial subject. This book is about love, specifically talking love (谈恋爱). I’ve always been a sucker for romanticism, particularly that poetic, thoughtful, pained Chinese romanticism, and it doesn’t disappoint.

The book is structured in four parts, all from a single root. A friend had introduced Xinran to an elderly lady, Han Anhong, whose husband’s dying wish was that she take a virginity test. She does so, and is shown never to have had sex in 61 years of marriage. Through Xinran, who interviews her over a long period, Han (known as Red) tells her story, which starts when she was nine during the Chinese civil war with her father arranging her marriage to his friend’s son. He has another love, who has disappeared, and so their long celibate marriage is one of ‘ceiling gazing’ and talking about love; for her, the Cultural Revolution was the ‘longest holiday I had during the “life sentence” of my marriage’. Thanks to his love for another, she is unable to become a wife or a mother.

Red is one of nine siblings; three died young, three stayed into revolutionary China, and three left. Xinran interviews more members of Red’s family. We are told the story of Red’s sister Green, educated at one of Beijing’s best schools in the early communist period (in one of the most vivid depictions of that time I have read), during which time she falls in love with a man from an extremely poor Shandong background. Xinran then tells us the story of Green’s daughter Crane, who is rusticated during the Cultural Revolution and teaches poetry to her commune while ‘picking up bad habits from the peasants’ and falling in love. After Crane, we hear the stories of a third younger generation.

Xinran has alighted on a fantastically rich and deeply personal trove of stories. There is heartache, tragedy and pure romance, told by a family of women with a deep and abiding love for Chinese poetry. Each person in the family even has colour-based nicknames that translate well to English for readers less familiar with Chinese. It is skilfully composed, reading fluidly as if recounted by her subjects, with amusing and interesting turns of phrase and observations. The sections are punctuated by the occasional short intervention by Xinran herself to remark, exclaim or explain (and Xinran is clearly a talented teacher, and fantastically good at explaining aspects of Chinese culture concisely and effectively). If there is a criticism to make it is that at times it is rather too effective at feeling like your Great Aunt recounting a story, complete with some tangents that are a little rambling.

For the first three quarters we are in familiar territory – the Chinese twentieth century being told through the experiences of one family of women. So far, so Wild Swans. By telling through testimony it can glide over complex history; it feels fresh and is often heart-meltingly romantic. Only the assurance that these are real stories separates them from nostalgic romantic movies like The Road Home (我的父亲母亲) or one of those long Chinese TV series about rusticated youth falling for each other (and for the People too, of course).

But the last quarter is the intriguing and distinguishing part. In this quarter we hear from three of the current younger generation. Xinran has an innocent bemusement at WeChat and the video calling technology she must use for these interviews. Their stories are incomplete, of course, and while they felt a little self-indulgently angsty at times their experiences of modern love are profoundly depressing. Somehow the insights are a little triter and the language a little riper than in the previous sections (“I felt very strongly that her heart was like a clear spring formed from the drops of her tears”). The contrast between their soulless sibling-free world of meaningless sex, online flirting, throwaway mistresses – and marriages – and fatherless children and the earlier generations’ great romances is stark. One of the three subjects links speed dating to the ‘loss of our Chinese civilisation’. But this puts doubts in my mind that Xinran doesn’t explore. Is it true, and is it fair? Is the new generation really so much worse off? It is a deeply pessimistic note to end on if so. The trials of the older generations have an anguished nostalgia – their times do not come across as easy, but they do feel fulfilling and full of life. Did they feel so at the time? One of the subjects compares dating to exhausting travel. When this younger generation looks back on their youth will they only remember the exhaustion and pain, or will they also allow themselves a wistful smile at their ‘journey’ and lost loves in uncertain times?

While the final section did leave me feeling a little hollow, I did love this book. Xinran had originally planned a fifth section to retell some classic Chinese love stories – they are not needed, as there is plenty of love in this book already.

“A persons character is inextricably linked to their local environment” - Chinese proverb

This book is a fascinating account of the history of modern China through the lens of four generations of women from one family. Four very different stories of love, life and loss.

I had to remind myself several times that this wasn’t a piece of fiction, but the oral history of real life women who were sharing their memories for the first time...not just with the world, but each other. Whether their marriages were arranged, politically advantageous or based online (and we think the older generation is weird!) their stories emphasise how the changing politics and westernisation of the country directly impacted their personal narratives.

Written in the form of an interview of sorts, I was shocked, humbled and intrigued by some of their experiences and enjoyed how the author has brought an emotional side to a country we know for its economy! A riveting read for anyone interested in women’s literature, human nature, Chinese culture (I lost count of all the quirky traditions) and history.

The Promise is a powerful account of social change in China, told through the relationships and marriages of four generations of women from one family. From the traditional arranged marriages that still prevailed at the start of the twentieth century to today's online dating and virtual relationships these women's stories reflect the political cultural and social changes that have rocked the country and totally transformed it. Xinran brings her trademark style and uses her considerable interview skills to draw these women out in a way that makes them comfortable enough to discuss the most private and personal aspects of their lives. Through the lens of their very human experiences the reader is given a new perspective on history and the realities faced by the people living through it.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

There are some very interesting stories here but I found the narrative jerky and fragmented. Personally, I didn't appreciate the format of Xinran inserting herself so much into the text as she explains how she manages to interview the women, what their surroundings were, precisely what kind of tea they are drinking and so on. Also, the voices of the women themselves can feel messy as they ramble through their stories. This may well be realistic but it doesn't make for great reading.

The recording of this kind of oral history is critical to preserve the historical record, especially for women's lives. And the vast social and cultural changes in China over the last 100 years are fascinating. Personally, I'd have preferred more analysis and less description, and perhaps for the women's stories to have been mediated or, at least, organised more effectively. So great material, just not my favourite way of having it presented.