The Binding Chair [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Kathryn Harrison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2001

From the author of the best-selling memoir, The Kiss, Kathryn Harrison's passionate fourth novel takes us to Shanghai as the last century ends. Beautiful, charismatic and destructive, May escapes an arranged marriage in rural China for life in a Shanghai brothel, where, in 1899, she meets Arthur, an Australian. As a member of the Foot Emancipation Society, Arthur calls on May not for his pleasure but for her rehabilitation, only to find himself helplessly seduced by the sight of her bound feet. Reforming May is out of the question, so Arthur marries her instead, and brings her home to live with his sister Dolly, her husband Dick, and their two girls Alice and Cecily. In Alice May sees the possibility of redemption: a surrogate for the child she has lost. And it is to May that Alice turns for the love her own mother withholds. But when the twelve year old is caught preparing her aunt's opium pipe, Alice is enrolled in a London boarding school, far from the dangerous influence of the woman who will come to reclaim her, and to control the whole family. A startling story of travel and flight, the search for home and the need to escape it. Where traditions and cultures clash, tragedy threatens a world built on the banks of unsettled waters -- from the filthy, bustling Whangpoo River to the lake of blood in the Chinese afterworld.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'A spellbinding novel, ruthless, moving and utterly without sentiment.' Mail on Sunday 'The Binding Chair is a disturbing, beautifully plotted novel, intricate in its detail and panoramic in its sweep. It presents us with a world in which tragedy is natural and everyday, where beauty is a reminder of cruelty.' Daily Telegraph 'Harrison's mesmeric voice compels the reader towards the inevitable climax. The Binding Chair is a beautiful account of the lives of two very different women and the difficulties they face in their quest for independence.' Observer 'A vivid family saga. The characters come alive on the page. Harrison has convincingly captured the Shanghai of the early twentieth-century, a jarring, cacophonous, swarming city of possibility.' Evening Standard --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Kathryn Harrison is a graduate of Stanford University and of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her first novel, Thicker than Water, was a New York Times Notable Book, as was her second, Exposure. Her most recent novel is A Thousand Orange Trees. She is also the author of The Kiss which received critical acclaim. She lives in New York City with her husband, the writer Colin Harrison and their children. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 419 pages
• Publisher: Wheeler Publishing; Lrg edition (February 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568951396
• ISBN-13: 978-1568951393
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,726,520 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Author Photo by Joyce Ravid.

Kathryn Harrison was born in 1961 in Los Angeles, California, where she was raised by her mother's parents. She is a graduate of Stanford University and the Iowa Writers Workshop, where, in 1986, she met her husband, the novelist Colin Harrison. They had a first date on Friday, April 25, and on Monday, April 28, they moved in together. The Harrisons married in 1988, and live in Brooklyn with their three children. Kathryn writes novels, memoirs, personal essays, biography, and true crime. She is a frequent reviewer for the New York Times Book Review, and teaches memoir at Hunter College's MFA program in Creative Writing, in New York City.