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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Introducing a Fine New Author!, April 15, 2005
This review is from: China Diaries: A novel (Paperback)
Louis Stannard pounces onto the scene of excellent fiction authors with this, his first novel CHINA DIARIES, and if this superb book is an indication of other works to come, Stannard is destined to be a best selling new author of popular highly charged action/intrigue/romance novels.
It is refreshing to encounter a first novel of such range and capable writing. CHINA DIARIES is a beautifully crafted novel that not only tells a terrific story, it also brings to light a portion of history that has been buried in the history books. Stannard's main character Stephen Cannon is engaged in a detective mystery that focuses on his parents and his perception of his mother, one Anna Boreisha, a Russian émigré from Shanghai and Nanking, who deserted him shortly after his birth to return to China.
The bulk of the novel takes place in the latter part of 1941 when the Japanese bombed the Western Coast of China including Hong Kong and the many islands in the Pacific (Pearl Harbor, Wake, Guam, etc) on their way to mirroring in Asia what Hitler was accomplishing in Europe. It is during this time of terror that Alex Cannon, a Pan AM pilot, meets Anna, they fall in love, marry, and become pregnant with Stephen. The remainder of the story is how the couple returns to the USA and the way their lives merge and dissipate after that.
But this is not just a significant love story, it is a deeply researched study of WW II as it affected the US intervention into the war following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a very informative and extended expose' of how the Japanese carried out a Chinese genocide (the Rape of Nanking is only a small example) and how this has remained a controversial and occult secret throughout history. And as if that weren't enough to peak the interest of any reader, Stannard explores the dissolution of Tsarist Russia and the subsequent rise of the Bolsheviks and Communism that drove Anna's family to flee to China as a country that would accept them without passports. This is Anna's past and brings to the novel the plight of the Russian émigrés. Rarely has the history of the Whites versus the Reds during the Russian Revolution been so succinctly and beautifully described.
If this sounds like a lot of information for a novel to carry, then reading this book will prove the gifts of Louis Stannard, for he is able to tightly weave details from history into a fictional search for family identity in a manner too infrequently encountered in young novelists. This is a remarkable book, begging for a screenplay adaptation, and is a class calling card for an exceptional talent. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, April 05
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Historical fiction at its best and most instructive, April 8, 2005
Oftentimes, one can learn more about the past from a work of historical fiction than from an academic or journalistic textbook. History can tell you what happened, but good historical fiction can take you there and let a part of you experience it for yourself. China Diaries is an extraordinarily good work of historical fiction, providing readers with an illuminating window into the World War II experience of China. For whatever reason, the extent of the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers on the Chinese people has never seemed to register properly in the public consciousness - then or now. In the 1930s, the world turned a blind eye to Japanese aggression, despite the absolute horrors of atrocities such as the rape of Nanking. Louis Stannard wants to tell this neglected story of the war, and he succeeds admirably in doing so. Stannard also brings to light an even more neglected aspect of World War II, one I was completely unfamiliar with - namely, the important contributions of Pan Am's small fleet of Clipper boat planes in the Chinese theater of war. As an experienced pilot himself, Stannard does an impeccable job explaining the realities of aviation in that era, and that lends the story a pervasive air of authenticity. Of course, a good historical novel also has to have a good story, and China Diaries features a truly compelling one full of romance, danger, heroism, betrayal, and personal discovery.
Stephen Cannon never knew his parents, both of whom died during World War II. The only connection he has with them is in the form of the journals they left behind, journals he calls the China Diaries because they describe the life of his parents in China in the late 1930s. His father was a pilot who flew for the China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC), while his mother was a Russian émigré from Shanghai who worked for the CNAC, married his father against the backdrop of the opening hostilities in Hong Kong, and - for reasons Stephen never understood - left her newborn baby in the States in order to return to China in the early 1940s, whereupon she disappeared. Fifty years later, a young Chinese exchange student contacts Stephen out of the blue and tells him that his great-uncle has information about his mother, Anna Boreisha Cannon, and is eager to share it with him - in fact, the man claims to owe his very life to Anna. Soon, Stephen is on his way to Hong Kong, hoping to finally learn the enigmatic secrets of his mother's extraordinary life.
This is really Anna's story, and it is a truly remarkable one. Some of it comes in the form of her journal entries, but most of it is presented in standard narrative form. Life as a young Russian girl in Shanghai held little promise in the 1930s, but Anna's father saw to it that his daughter was highly educated. That education provided the means for her to get a job with the CNAC and escape her home town when the Japanese invaded. Anna spent the rest of her life seemingly running just ahead of the invading Japanese army. She was in Hong Kong when it was attacked, she witnessed the horrors of the rape of Nanking, and she desperately sought to get word of the Japanese atrocities out to the rest of the world, naively believing they would come to China's aid if they only knew what was really taking place at the murderous hands of the Japanese. While she was in Hong Kong, she met and fell in love with American pilot Alex Cannon, and the reader is treated to an intimate look at their loving relationship as seen against the backdrop of war. Now following his mother's footsteps in Hong Kong and China, Stephen finally learns the remaining history of the mother he never knew. It all makes for a powerful story, one quite capable of changing lives even in the here and now.
China Diaries paints an incredibly revealing portrait of China during the decade of Japanese aggression. It is an ugly time of war, prejudice, treason, betrayal, and mass murder, yet it also extols the incredible bravery of extraordinary women such as Anna and the men of the CNAC who continued to support the Chinese people as best they could in their time of need. This is the story of World War II as it played out on the other side of the globe, a story made no less horrifying by its lack of German concentration camps or sadistic storm troopers. The historical events making up the foundation of this novel did actually happen. The rest of the world, as typified by the League of Nations, ignored the plight of a suffering people in the 1930s and thereby helped bring about the global conflagration of World War II and the later scourge of Communism to the world's most populous country. One must never ignore the horrors of man's inhumanity to man because such horrors will not end until good men somewhere work up the fortitude to take it upon themselves to stop it. China Diaries is not about the U.S. war effort that eventually turned the tides of war, but it does offer insights into the reluctance of America to join the noble fight up until everything changed on a peaceful Sunday morning in Pearl Harbor. We must learn from the mistakes of the past, and China Diaries - besides telling an incredibly gripping story - makes for an excellent and very instructive history lesson for us all.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A forgotten history of WW II, May 22, 2008
The author takes up the challenge to chronicle the history of the Pacific War in Asia, which still remains essentially unknown to the West. Americans simply lack vital information about our own role in the war against Japan. Stannard uses the Historical Novel model, placing his characters in real events of the past.
The book has two main characters, Anna and Stephen, a mother and her son. Anna, a Russian woman growing up in Shanghai in the thirties, creates a written record of the Japanese invasion and occupation of mainland China, the diaries of the title. In this novel, Anna literally lives the horrors and atrocities of the Japanese Imperial Army invasion. The son, Stephen, was conceived in China, and is separated from his parents. His father, Alex, a pilot for Pan American World Airways, flying the fabled China Clipper routes between Oakland and Hong Kong, meets and falls in love with Anna, who works for the China National Aviation Corporation. CNAC, the actual first passenger and freight airline in China, hires Anna and her brother for administrative positions in development of mainland routes.
The novel sets itself a difficult task: How to weave themes of the Japanese invasion of China, US politics before and during WW II, Chinese political intrigue, a nascent Chinese airline industry, and the contemporary efforts of the current Japanese government to suppress history. The author, himself a commercial pilot, wraps Anna's and Stephen's personalities around these developments and makes them central figures of this history. His method is multiple flash backs and flash forwards, moving the story along through the voices of Anna and Alex, and finally of Stephen.
The novel opens with Stephen in possession of parts of his mother's diaries together with his father's pilot logbooks. He learns that a large part of the dairies, however, thought to be lost, have surfaced in possession of an aged Hong Kong Chinese. These documents are an important part of the full historical record of the Japanese occupation, providing details of atrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial Army. To put the family history together, Stephen flies to Hong Kong to secure the missing diaries.
As the novel proceeds, the reader is taken on a wild ride through scenes that vividly describe the savage cruelty of the Japanese in China. Historical themes, all too familiar to Asian American families, but largely unknown or forgotten by the general population, are explored by the author. Everything from the 1931 invasion to germ warfare to civilian massacres in China to POW mistreatment by the Japanese Imperial Army.
For example, a climactic 1938 episode details the dramatic nighttime rescue of Anna by a daredevil CNAC pilot, Moon Chin, with a seaplane on a wide stretch of the Yangtze River. Anna had just escaped the Rape of Nanking, where she helped the Nanjing Safety Committee thwart attempted rape by marauding Japanese soldiers.
Moon Chin is a real person, a former CNAC pilot who lives today in San Mateo, California. Capt. Chin has told the real seaplane rescue story many times. This is just one example of how Louis Stannard uses real people, places, and events to tell a compelling and heroic tale.
The novel ends with a confrontation between Stephen and Japanese government thugs sent to intercept his mission to regain the diaries and preserve history.
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