City of Tranquil Light: A Novel [Hardcover]

Bo Caldwell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 2010

"What ardent, dazzling souls emerge from these American missionaries in China . . . A beautiful, searing book that leaves an indelible presence in the mind." —Patricia Hampl, author of The Florist's Daughter

Will Kiehn is seemingly destined for life as a humble farmer in the Midwest when, having felt a call from God, he travels to the vast North China Plain in the early twentieth-century. There he is surprised by love and weds a strong and determined fellow missionary, Katherine. They soon find themselves witnesses to the crumbling of a more than two-thousand-year-old dynasty that plunges the country into decades of civil war. As the couple works to improve the lives of the people of Kuang P'ing Ch'eng— City of Tranquil Light, a place they come to love—and face incredible hardship, will their faith and relationship be enough to sustain them?

Told through Will and Katherine's alternating viewpoints—and inspired by the lives of the author's maternal grandparents—City of Tranquil Light is a tender and elegiac portrait of a young marriage set against the backdrop of the shifting face of a beautiful but torn nation. A deeply spiritual book, it shows how those who work to teach others often have the most to learn, and is further evidence that Bo Caldwell writes "vividly and with great historical perspective" (San Jose Mercury News).

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Caldwell (The Distant Land of My Father) draws from the biographies of missionaries in northern China during the turbulent first half of the 20th century in this mixed second novel. It traces the story of two young, hopeful Midwesterners--shy, bright Oklahoma farmer Will Kiehn and brave Cleveland deaconess Katherine Friesen--as they journey to the brink of China's civil war in the isolated town of Kuang P'ing Ch'eng: the "City of Tranquil Light." In the unforgiving "land of naught," they live the joys and perils of missionary life, including famine, spiritual rejection, the dramatic 1926 rise of Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang, and the forcible, often violent, exile of fellow missionaries. Throughout the unrelenting hardship, the remarkably stable couple remain in China, bound to their newfound roots and to the ideals of their larger mission. At times this novel seems more about rhetoric than relationships--the couple's unwavering dedication to each other and their mission is unbelievable at times--but Katherine's diary entries are emotionally deft, capturing the romance and anxiety of cultural estrangement.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Caldwell set her first novel in pre-WWII Shanghai. She returns to China in her second, inspired by the story of her missionary grandparents. Her fictionalized version begins in 1906 when Will, 21, and Katherine, a year older, join a group of Mennonite missionaries on their journey from Seattle to China––he an enraptured recruit, she a nursing student whose sister is married to the group’s charismatic leader. Several years later Will and Katherine marry, and are sent to Kuang P’ing Ch’eng, or the City of Tranquil Light, on the North China Plain, where they stay for nearly 25 years. Caldwell masterfully interweaves their remarkable sojourn—during which they run an ever-expanding church, establish an orphanage, and struggle with their faith when their cherished daughter dies of dysentery at 11 months—with China’s tumultuous history during those years marked by civil war. Caldwell perceptively explores the deepening faith shared by her grandparents while at the same time painting a vivid portrait of the country they came to love more deeply than their own. --Deborah Donovan

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; First Edition edition (September 28, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805092285
• ISBN-13: 978-0805092288
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #200,804 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bo Caldwell grew up in Los Angeles and graduated from Stanford University, where she later held a Wallace Stegner Fellowship and a Jones Lectureship in Creative Writing. She has received a fellowship in literature from the National Endowment for the Arts, an Artist Fellowship from the Arts Council of Santa Clara County, the Georgia Shreve Prize in Fiction at Stanford University, and the Joseph Henry Jackson Award from the San Francisco Foundation. Her first novel, The Distant Land of My Father, was published in hardcover by Chronicle Books in October of 2001 and in paperback by Harcourt in September of 2002. The book was a national bestseller, one of the Los Angeles Times' Best Books of 2001, and a Booksense 76 pick in both hardcover and paperback. The book was also selected for community reading programs in Pasadena ("One City, One Story"), Santa Clara County ("Silicon Valley Reads"), and the City of Claremont ("On the Same Page"). Foreign rights were sold to the U.K., the Netherlands, France, and Italy. Her second novel, City of Tranquil Light, published by Henry Holt in September of 2010, was a Los Angeles Times bestseller, an October 2010 Indie Next Notable, and one of O Magazine's Ten Must Reads for October 2010. Foreign rights have been sold in Italy and Turkey. Her personal essays have appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, the Washington Post Magazine, and America Magazine, and her short stories have been included in Story, Ploughshares, Epoch, and other literary journals. She lives in Northern California with her husband, novelist Ron Hansen.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Portrait of faith, August 15, 2010

By 

Pippa Lee (Honolulu, HI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: City of Tranquil Light: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

"I have learned to do what God places in front of me, whatever that is," Will Kiehn says as he explains to Hsiao Lao, the bandit chief, his commitment to help anybody in need, be that a sick old farmer or an injured thief. Those same words could also sum up Will's life story in "City of Tranquil Light."

In 1909 Will and his wife, Katherine arrived in Kuang P'ing Ch'eng (City of Tranquil Light), in the North China Plain to establish a new Mennonite church. Little did they know then that they would stay there for nearly 25 years and would come to think of China as their home. Author Bo Caldwell, tells their story through Will, a widower now, in his eighties, and living in a retirement home in California, as he vividly remembers the trials and tribulations of becoming a pastor and of earning the trust of the inhabitants of Kuang P'ing Ch'eng. Caldwell cleverly intersperses Katherine's diary entries with Will's narration thus bringing up her in-the-moment feelings to his remembrance of the events they lived through together. And they lived through a lot: personal losses, bandits, famine, earthquakes and civil war.

Caldwell was inspired by her grandparents' missionary experiences for this book and even gave their last name to her protagonists. Her portrait of missionaries in China is one of individuals who answered God's call and strove to serve Him --despite many sacrifices and hardships-- with passion. In Kuang P'ing C'heng, Will preaches the Word of God while Katherine provides medical care in her clinic. Rather than trying to impose their beliefs, Will and Katherine work selflessly in the hopes that through their words and actions others will come to accept God. Their mission is clear (as Katherine was reminded in her early days in China): "We are here to offer the gift of faith, not remake their way of life, even when the change seems necessary and right."

Although a historical novel, thankfully, Caldwell only includes enough facts to place her characters within the context of China's historical events. Her focus on the characters, their triumphs and sorrows, their faith and their doubts is what makes this novel a satisfying book. Caldwell wrote this story in part because of the bad rap missionaries get in fiction. With this book, she dispels the exploitative image and succeeds in reminding the readers that there were a few who sincerely reached out to others in kindness and compassion, in other words, those who stayed true to God's call.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a decent historical novel, August 22, 2010

By 

ephemeral - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: City of Tranquil Light: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

The City of Tranquil Light tells the story of two American missionaries who fall in love with each other and their paths in life while working in early 20th century China. The book is narrated primarily by Will, with intermittent diary entries from his wife, Katherine. Both Will and Katherine are characterized primarily by their Christian faith, and as the bulk of the plot revolves around their missionary work, quite a lot of space is devoted to contemplation of God and accounts of proselytizing. There are non-Christian viewpoints expressed by minor characters, but they are few and far between. Still, the book itself is not a propaganda piece, and the Christian element is not overwhelming to readers who do not follow the faith.

The author does a good job of creating the character of Will, but Katherine isn't as fleshed out and isn't nearly as compelling or relatable. The turbulence of pre-revolutionary China and the desperation of war and famine move the book along and add tension and suspense. While the novel isn't amazing, it was interesting to read from a historical perspective. I'd recommend it to people interested in China's history.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars " 'Whatever happens, whether we live or die, we are victorious.' ", September 23, 2010

By 

K. M. "literary devotee" (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: City of Tranquil Light: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Those words were spoken by Will Kiehn, one of the protagonists in City of Tranquil Light: A Novel. He and his wife, Katharine, went to China as missionaries in the early twentieth century. He relates his story as an old man, retired in southern California. He is also a widower and perhaps his most prized possession is, in his words, "my wife's diary, a thin volume I never read while she was alive but whose pages I now know by heart." He adds, "I was her husband for over thirty-seven years....She taught me the self-discipline I lacked, believed I was capable of far more than I did, and loved me as a young man as well as an old one. She was the one and only love of my live."

As the story of their years in China unfolds, Will's narrative is seasoned with her diary entries, and the result is a poignant testament to a couple working for the Lord in a country where Christians made converts very laboriously, often being spat upon or threatened. Will's preaching was not really as effective as his wife's nursing of the poor villagers in the City of Tranquil Light; Katharine's healing medicines and techniques earned the friendship and trust of the people around them. For the two American Mennonites, who met on the trip over to China, the years they spent there were filled with the hardships of rudimentary living conditions, the dangers of bandits and civil wars, and their own personal tragedy. Yet, they loved the country they had journeyed to and stayed for decades, braving the threat of execution more than once. All the while, they both, by their actions, sought to bring their Chinese neighbors to Christ. One of the conversions takes place over years and through a number of sometimes frightening encounters, but the fact that it is so hard-won makes it all the sweeter.

CITY OF TRANQUIL LIGHT is based on the experiences of author Bo Caldwell's own grandparents in China, Peter and Anna Schmidt Kiehn. She take some basic facts and then fleshes out a moving story. Although in hindsight, many would argue whether missionaries in China were more helpful or more disruptive, at the time, that Christian work was a very honored calling. This novel offers gentle insights into Will and Katharine's sacrifices for their beliefs, and their abiding love for each other and the Chinese who became their dearest friends. It reminds the reader how vulnerable people can be when they venture into a foreign land where they really have no rights and where uncertainty is a greater element of life than it would be at home in America. And it demonstrates how very different people can bridge those differences and become as family. That is a victory for certain.

Will got the first word in this review. Now, let's give him the last too: "I think of myself as extraordinarily blessed, rich beyond measure, the unlikely recipient of the great honor of serving my Lord in a faraway land, and I am amazed at my great good fortune."