Sons of Heaven [Hardcover]

Terrence Cheng (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 30, 2002

Sons of Heaven is an epic novel set against the backdrop of one of modern history's most haunting events: the Tiananmen Square Massacre. In June of 1989, the world watched in horror as China's military was mobilized to suppress a student movement that stood for peaceful democracy. Hundreds were killed; others say into the thousands. No one knows for sure.

But the image that remains most powerful is that of a lone young man, looking confused yet terribly brave, as he held his ground before a rolling line of tanks. Who was he, and why did he do what he did? No one has ever been able to determine his identity or fate. Within the pages of Sons of Heaven, in a stunning blend of history and fiction, Terrence Cheng has vividly created for this young hero a life, and given him a voice.

Cheng constructs the young man's life as he goes away to America to complete his education. He falls in love with a beautiful young American girl who opens to him a free life filled with opportunity. When he returns to China he becomes embittered and disillusioned; only the potential for political change seems to revive him. Also portrayed is the story of the young man's older brother, an ardent member of the Red Army, who is ordered to capture his sibling. In the end, their political differences turn deadly. On one level this is a novel of history as played out in modern China, but first and foremost, it is about the universal ties of family and the difficult process of boys learning to become men.

Cheng also scrutinizes the life and history of Deng Xiaoping, China's leader who is suspected of giving the final order to turn the People's Army against its own people. What historical and political factors affected his decisions that fateful summer? Was Deng the monster that the world made him out to be?

An unsettling and powerfully lacerating story of family, faith, and courage, Sons of Heaven weaves the lives of peasants and soldiers, politicians and gods, into a timeless snapshot of one of history's most memorable and heartrending events. With this unforgettable, psychologically acute novel, Terrence Cheng confirms that he is a daring and important new voice in fiction.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Centering around the Tiananmen Square massacre and its aftermath, this remarkably structured and textured debut epic seeks to attach a face to the mysterious man who, by stepping in front of the rolling army tanks, became the most recognizable symbol of the massacres. Cheng succeeds in his endeavor, and in the process he gives China a face as well¢one so vivid and provocative it's hard to walk away without a fresh impression of the massacre, the 13 years since, and modern-day China in general. Three months before the massacre, Xiao-Di returns to China after spending four years at Cornell University, where he fell in love with a blonde American girl who left him upon graduation. But he has tasted freedom and his return to China is turbulent. He cannot find work. He grapples with the way the masses adhere to tradition and respect authority. He lives with his grandparents (his parents are dead) and when not at home feeling angry and confused, he is out with his friend Wong, bleakly contemplating the future. Then, through the eyes of president Deng Xiaoping, we enter Tiananmen Square, where students have begun protesting. Cheng successfully humanizes the person he has called a complicated man, driven by a genuine passion to create a better society for the Chinese people. Xiao-Di soon finds himself impulsively partaking in a hunger strike and, before long, facing down a tank. Complicating matters is his brother, Lu, a Chinese soldier who is sent with a unit to find Xiao-Di. Through the brothers and their grandparents, a multifaceted and sophisticated portrait of the Chinese people is rendered. This is a rare find: historical and political without being pedantic, and briskly entertaining without being cheap, simplistic or contrived.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Cheng left Taiwan in 1973 as an infant and grew up in New York. In 1989, he watched the TV reports of the anonymous young man who challenged the tanks in Tiananmen Square and was never heard from again. Cheng's debut novel traces a possible biography for this iconic character. A math student who spent his college years in the States, the young man returns to China, where his long-standing engagement turns sour and the fiancee's family retaliates by blackballing him. Living with helpless grandparents and abandoned by an older brother, he joins the fasting students in Tiananmen Square. As Cheng limns the agony of this youth, he also traces the parallel thoughts and actions of the mastermind at the top of the government, Deng Xiaoping, and the true believer at its bottom, the student's brother, who is a lowly soldier. Despite some fevered overplotting, there is much grace, drama, and insight to be enjoyed; Cheng is particularly effective in depicting the perilous state of mind experienced by risk-taking. A ripping good story about a headline event of great power and resonance, it is sure to be marketed heavily and will appeal to many public library patrons. Barbara Conaty, Library of Congress
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company; 1st edition (April 30, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060002433
• ISBN-13: 978-0060002435
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #848,753 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Terrence Cheng was born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1972, and immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1973. He received his BA in English from Binghamton University (State University of New York), and his MFA in Fiction from the University of Miami, FL, where he was a James Michener Fellow. In 2005 he received a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Cheng is Associate Professor and Chair of the English Department at Lehman College, part of the City University of New York. To contact him, send an email to [e-mail].

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An impressive and thrilling debut novel, May 3, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Sons of Heaven (Hardcover)

The Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989 left in its wake scores of casualties and haunting images that aired again and again on international television. SONS OF HEAVEN, Terrence Cheng's first novel, is remarkable in many ways, but mostly, centrally, for its thrilling ability to imagine the life of the now famous (but still unidentified) young man who dared to step in the path of an approaching government tank.

Cheng gracefully interweaves three distinct points of view in a way that ultimately humanizes China's complex modern history. We are privy to the point of view of that young, skinny boy (named Xiano-Di in the novel), of Xiano-Di's brother Lu (who is a soldier in the army) and also, most daringly, of Deng Xiaoping.

The passages from Deng's perspective are gripping. Deng is a riveting character: he is a revealed as a complicated man, full anger, sadness, and humanity. With Cheng's portrayal of Deng, he manages to articulate the passion, motivation, and desire for freedom and power that fuels all revolutionary acts.

We should never forget the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Now that we have this impressive and thrilling debut novel, the powerful images from 1989 will haunt us anew.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A bold first novel, August 11, 2003

By 

"efchay" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sons of Heaven (Hardcover)

Terrence Cheng writes a bold new novel re-imagining the circumstances surrounding the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. He has boldly (and some would say presumptuously) fictionalized the accounts of the man who famously held up a column of People's Army tanks by merely standing in front of them, and that of Deng Xiaopeng. Both of these stories would be difficult to tell in the hands of a lesser writer, but Cheng pulls it off admirably.

The novel isn't so much about the Tiananmen uprising as it is about how the uprising affected the main characters. That said, perhaps the most important scene in the book (holding up the column of tanks) comes too soon in the narrative. After reading that dramatic sequence, everything else that follows falls flat. It's no coincidence that Cheng's narrative loses steam in the beginning of the second half of the book.

That said, "Sons of Heaven" is an important work and an impressive debut novel.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Creative Yet Convincing Historical Fiction, October 19, 2002

By 

Matthew M. Yau "Voracious reader" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sons of Heaven (Hardcover)

The Tienanmen crackdown in 1989 still makes my heart tremble. The book cover jacket showing a man confronting in front of the tank stirs me. Cheng's debut novel is a historical fiction interwoven with three parties: The dissident (Xiao-Di, meaning little brother), the soldier (Lu), and the comrade (the late Deng Xiaoping). The novel traced events leading to the Tienanmen masscre and the pursuit of fugitive and student protest leaders afterwards. The book brings alive struggles of common "laobaishung" (peasants) families and the their toil for democracy. Cheng also cunningly humanize the former Communist leader Deng Xiaoping.

Cheng has done a phenomenonal job in bridging these three characters together. Little brother Xiaodi, the once study-aboard elite, becomes infatuated with the democratic student movement and confronts in front of tanker. Xaiopi later on becomes fugitive accused of overturning the Communist Party. Lu, Xiaodi's older brother, serves on the 38th Troop of the People Liberation Army, raids through his grandparents' house and remote village in search of the suspect. Comrade Deng is portraited more as humanistic than many have thought. His interaction with Pufang, his immobile son, makes him somewhat more likable. A good read.