110 Shanghai Road [Hardcover]

Monica Highland (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The story in this pretentious multigenerational novel begins in Shanghai, 1926-37, a time of upheaval throughout China caused by civil war, threats from Japan, and an unwelcome Western influence. The lives of three Westerners, Matt, Harley, and Jordan, born and raised in Shanghai, become intertwined over the years, with Harley in the role of avaricious businessman, Matt as the flawed, heroic dreamer, and Jordan as the talented, self-centered, supremely beautiful heroine. We follow these three and their many relations until 1983. A simplistic parallel history of China and the United States serves as a background to the convoluted soap-opera plot. A TV miniseries based on the book is planned for 1987 and may generate requests. Patricia Altner, Dept. of Defense Lib., Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 462 pages
• Publisher: Mcgraw-Hill; First Edition edition (July 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0070287929
• ISBN-13: 978-0070287921
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,002,889 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars American soap opera set in China, July 25, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: 110 Shanghai Road (Hardcover)

The soap opera part of this story comes from such things as romantic triangles, secret affairs, sibling rivalries and jealousies, stabbing in the back, misunderstandings. These intrigues kept me reading to find out who was going to do what to whom next, but the main draw for me was the diversity of settings and characters. The story begins with wealthy American familes and a missionary family living in China in 1926, as China enters a revolutionary period. There are conflicts among these families as well as conflict between them and the Chinese factors of that time period. One of the characters, Jordan, an American woman, flees her family to join the revolution and journeys with Mao, while her former lover finds himself in the U.S. during the McCarthy era, wondering what happened to her. Several generations of these families weave in and out of each others' lives for 60 years. The plot kept moving along at a good pace, and was quite entertaining.