God of Luck [Paperback]

Ruthanne Lum McCunn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2008

“ Held me captive right from the start.”—Alan Cheuse, NPR, All Things Considered

“Her clear voice and simple but elegant style easily turns this work into a real page-turner.”—Library Journal

“A vivid tale of a faraway time.”—Asian Week

“Beautifully combines the hardships and brutality of the kidnapping of a Chinese man, conditions on the slave ships, and the bitterness of backbreaking labor in a foreign land with the sadness and determination of a wife and family back home. . . . A story of emotional depth and truth.”—Lisa See, author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

“Will keep readers spellbound and cheering to the final page.”—Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, author of Farewell to Manzanar

“I love God of Luck.”—Da Chen, author of Brothers

Ah Lung and his beloved wife, Bo See, are separated by cruel fate when, like thousands of other Chinese men in the nineteenth century, he is kidnapped, enslaved, and shipped to the deadly guano mines off the coast of Peru. Praying to the God of Luck and using their own wits, they never lose hope of someday being reunited.

Ruthanne Lum McCunn, of Scottish and Chinese ancestry, is the author of the classic Thousand Pieces of Gold, The Moon Pearl, and Wooden Fish Songs. God of Luck was a Book Sense Pick. She lives in San Francisco.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ah Lung, the youngest son in a family of silk producers, is kidnapped and forced into slavery in McCunn's underpowered latest. Though Ah Lung signs a labor contract that promises generous wages and a limited term of employment, once he begins the journey to Peru from his native southern China, he discovers the wages are nonexistent and his chances of surviving the contract are only slightly better than those of surviving the voyage to Peru. While he endures being shackled in an overcrowded ship's hold, a failed mutiny, a shipboard fire and a cholera outbreak before being unloaded and forced to do backbreaking work in a guano mine, his family, especially his wife, Bo See, and sister Moongirl, search for him. Bo See decides to grow an additional crop of silkworms to finance her husband's rescue, and Ah Lung perseveres in the harshest of conditions. McCunn has done an enormous amount of research into both Chinese slavery and silk production, and though the information is fascinating, it tends to overwhelm her narrative and undermine its tension. The book has an epic sweep, but the reading experience is only partially satisfying. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

McCunn (Moon Pearl, 2000) dramatizes the nineteenth-century practice of kidnapping Chinese men to serve as indentured slaves in the Americas. This painful story of toiling in Peruvian guano mines, told in alternate voices by Ah Lung and his wife, Bo See, traces a harrowing journey on a slave ship, the disgusting work itself, the cruelty of the overseers, and the tragedy of a helpless family left behind without their loved ones. The author brings a powerful immediacy to the story with her use of earthy, even crude, imagery: descriptions of vomit and excrement aboard ship, Bo See's meticulous work in a silk factory contrasted with Ah Lung's desperate shoveling and breathing of guano dust. The enslavement of a million Chinese men at this time was a shameful blot in history's copybook, and McCunn's story certainly prompts the reader's outrage. Unfortunately, it doesn't go much further than that. The newlyweds come off as a bit wooden, and McCunn's pedestrian style lacks the psychological depth of other writers who have tackled this subject, including Gail Tsukiyama and Lisa See. Marginally recommended. Baker, Jen --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Soho Press (September 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569475180
• ISBN-13: 978-1569475188
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #443,311 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ruthanne Lum McCunn, an Eurasian of Chinese and Scottish descent, was hailed by the Dallas Times in 1985 as "an American-Chinese author of remarkable talent." Her work, which has won many awards, has been translated into eleven languages, published in twenty-two countries, and adapted for the stage and film.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Powerful, Riveting Novel, November 10, 2007

By 

San San "toot suite" - See all my reviews

This review is from: God of Luck (Hardcover)

God of Luck is a remarkable book. Until I read this novel, I was completely unaware of the slave trade to Latin America in the middle to late 1800's. It was disturbing to read, and yet I couldn't put the novel down, not only because of the compelling historical depiction of the brutal events, but because of the courageous and tender love story of Ah Lung and Bo See. McCunn is a genius at recreating the smallest details of an era with accuracy and vibrancy, and she has done it again in God of Luck.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good read, October 6, 2007

By 

H. A. Nimmo - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: God of Luck (Hardcover)

God of Luck is a very good read. It is a fast-paced adventure/love/historical novel all rolled into one. It is a very compelling story set in a little known chapter of the Chinese diaspora -- the Chinese men recruited/kidnapped to mine the guano islands off Peru. The hero (Ah Lung) is kidnapped and transported to work in the guano islands. His family and wife (Bo See) know he was kidnapped but never give up hope that he will return. The narrative moves back and forth between Ah Lung and his wife Bo See. At first I thought the "home" chapters would bog down the action of Ah Lung's narrative but they did not. When I finished I felt I'd not only had a good read, but had also learned a chapter of history I knew nothing about. As in her other novels, McCunn successfully weaves much ethnographic data into her story without it seeming a lesson in anthropology. The book has a minimalism that appealed to me. I liked the short chapters and the short sections within the chapters. A complex story covering many miles is told in relatively few pages. The book ends at the right place and lets the reader fill in the blanks that remain. If you like your 19th Century Chinese history and anthropology as a very readable adventure/love story, you'll love this novel.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A "Young Adult" Novel?, April 3, 2009

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: God of Luck (Paperback)

A young Chinese villager is kidnapped and sent to Peru as a 'contract' laborer, under the worst of abusive conditions, on a guano island. He plots to escape, as he tells us in first person narrative. Meanwhile, his young wife, in a parallel first person narrative, maintains hope that he will return, and applies her diligence and intelligence to keep her family-in-law prospering. A 'happy ending' is predictable. The writing is of utmost simplicity throughout, almost simple enough to suggest a rustic mentality or an immigrant's limited vocabulary, but the simplicity of the language doesn't exceed the simplicity of characterization and motivation. These are paper-doll heroes and villains. The best part of "God of Luck" is the ethnographic and historical material that makes up the background of the story; you'll learn something by reading it, about the conditions of the Chinese diaspora, about silk cultivation, and about guano.

Frankly, there's nothing in this book that justifies the use of reading time for people whose reading tastes include Patrick O'Brian, Joseph Conrad, or even Amy Tan. It should have been marketed as a "young adult" novel, appropriate for sixth-eighth grade readers. As such, it would have a lot to recommend it - an exciting mutiny and escape, a tale of innocent but powerful love, and lots of empathy for another cultural world.