Chasing Hepburn: A Memoir of Shanghai, Hollywood, and a Chinese Family's Fight for Freedom [Paperback]

Gus Lee (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 27, 2004

“Lee . . . has created a gripping and beautiful portrait of his family. . . . Chasing Hepburn is nonfiction, but it reads just as richly as any novel.”—Boston Globe

“Gus Lee brings to his first work of nonfiction the consummate storytelling skills that have always delighted us in his critically acclaimed novels. I promise you that you will be captivated by this epic story of two families who epitomize all that is rich and varied in Chinese culture.”
—Ron Bass, screenwriter of The Joy Luck Club and Rain Man

Gus Lee takes us straight into the heart of twentieth-century Chinese society, offering a clear-eyed yet compassionate view of the forces that repeatedly tore apart and reconfigured the lives of his parents and their contemporaries. He moves deftly from recounting intimate household conversations to discussing major historical events, and the resulting story is by turns comic, harrowing, tragic, and heroic.

Chasing Hepburn is a saga that spans four generations, two continents, and half of Chinese history. In the masterful hands of acclaimed author Gus Lee, his ancestors’ stories spring vividly to life in a memoir with all the richness of great fiction.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lee, author of four autobiographical novels (China Boy; Honor and Duty; etc.) opens his first nonfiction work with the distressing story of his mother Da-tsien's foot-binding in 1909 China. The women about to break the child's toes whisper terms of endearment. Suddenly, as often happens in this rewarding, ambitious memoir, a dramatic turn pushes Da-tsien's life in an unexpected direction: she's rescued. Her father, who can't bear her screams and has been influenced by foreign books, puts an end to the ritual. Lee writes that he assembled the "fractured clan stories" he was raised on to produce this family history, and although a sheaf of letters from his deceased father helped, he found it necessary to create "bridges" with "imagined details." In this respect, his experience as a novelist helps, and his writing is a constant pleasure of vibrant detail and effective dialogue, from his retelling of his parents' interactions with underworld gangsters in 1920s Shanghai to his depiction of their enthrallment with Katharine Hepburn, which eventually leads them to America. Lee's most remarkable skills, however, are his ability to deftly move between the personalities of his family tree and the family's intimate moments, and his observations of Chinese cultural history. When, for example, his grandmother fears Da-tsien's unbound feet will bring destruction upon the family, Lee so carefully explains the social forces pressing down on her that, although relieved for his mother, readers will find themselves worrying along with his grandmother. Photos.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

In his first nonfiction book, novelist Lee (China Boy) writes a lively memoir that centers on the life of his family in Shanghai during the Chinese civil war. Lee's parents, T.C. Lee and Da-Tsien Tzu, broke with Chinese tradition and arranged their own marriage. In their courting years, watching first-run movies in Shanghai in the early 1930s, they were attracted to strong-willed actress Katharine Hepburn and recognized each other's determination to be independent. T.C. Lee, a hyperactive person who chose a mobile career in the Chinese military and befriended the wealthy T.A. Soong, met Hepburn and became romantically involved with other American actresses in Hollywood. In the meantime, while raising their children and still living with her in-laws and parents in China, Da-Tsien Tzu became devoted to Western Christianity and eventually "walked across China" during the Japanese occupation with three of her children to reunite with her husband in California in the 1940s. Lee reveals how his parents struggled to mesh American and Chinese images and values. Recommended for large public libraries.
Peggy Spitzer Christoff, Library of Congress
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (January 27, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140005155X
• ISBN-13: 978-1400051557
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.1 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,192,116 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A family in context, February 3, 2003

By 

P. Johnson (Monterey, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chasing Hepburn: A Memoir of Shanghai, Hollywood, and a Chinese Family's Fight for Freedom (Hardcover)

In this remarkable memoir, Gus Lee presents a clear and compassionate picture of his parents, grandparents and their 'clans' set in turbulent times. He brings alive the social, historical, religious and cultural context which informs their actions and reactions making them comprehensible to a reader with a totally different cultural viewpoint. It reads like a multi-generational adventure novel where the characters play parts in or are impacted by major events, from the Taiping rebellion through the British opium trade to the civil wars that raged from the early twentieth century through the brutal Japanese occupation in WWII. It is a wild ride and a great read. Gus presents his forbears and related characters warts and all, but always with great compassion and subtlety. There are no cardboard characters. Readers of his novels, which have a strong autobiographical base, particularly 'China Boy', will know what a hard childhood he endured with a stern and distant father, a mother prone to 'magical' beliefs who died when he was five, and a rigid, vindictive step mother. In this memoir, Gus reveals to us what he subsequently discovered about his parents and he honors them both. Gus's own life has been a testament to using adversity to build strength. He has wasted no time blaming, or scoring points off his parents or using his experiences to excuse failings in his own life. There is no 'poor me' here. His story helped me understand a completely different belief system and cultural perspective. And it was at times moving, at other times funny, but always interesting.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling cultural drama draws you in and won't let go, February 6, 2003

By 

"syk448" (Nicasio, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chasing Hepburn: A Memoir of Shanghai, Hollywood, and a Chinese Family's Fight for Freedom (Hardcover)

Get ready to give up your weekend because once you pick up this book you won't be able to put it down. Lee's dramatic descriptions cover the conflicts between historical Eastern and Western traditions woven into poignant family events. While his relatives and their antics seem quirky and particular, in fact they resonate with all families facing abrupt changes and adaptation --be they generational or cultural. For those who have read and loved China Boy and Honor and Duty, Chasing Hepburn gives us the pre-story we've all been wondering about.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling cultural drama draws you in and won't let go, February 6, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Chasing Hepburn: A Memoir of Shanghai, Hollywood, and a Chinese Family's Fight for Freedom (Hardcover)

Get ready to give up your weekend because once you pick up this book you won't be able to put it down. Lee's dramatic descriptions cover the conflicts between historical Eastern and Western traditions woven into poignant family events. While his relatives and their antics seem quirky and particular, in fact they resonate with all families facing abrupt changes and adaptation --be they generational or cultural. For those who have read and loved China Boy and Honor and Duty, Chasing Hepburn gives us the pre-story we've all been wondering about.