It is 1951, the height of communist activity in Malaya. Father Francois Martin is sent from his native Toulouse to the little town of Luping to save souls. There, he meets Mei Kwei, a beautiful Chinese woman whose admiration for the priest soon turns into love.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Set in the 1950s, this atmospheric and moving love story by Singaporean author Lim (The Bondmaid) chronicles a Chinese girl's coming-of-age during the British occupation of Malaya. Mei Kwei, the Teardrop Story woman, was born "doubly cursed": not only is she a girl, but she has a teardrop-shaped mole beside her eyeAa harbinger of suffering, according to Chinese folklore. Although her father scorns her and unsuccessfully attempts to have her adopted by another family, the resourceful Mei Kwei survives by charming those around her, from her loutish Big Older BrotherAwhose affection for her has sexual overtonesAto the three men whose attentions later change her life. The first, a rich man known as Old Yoong, courts her by paying off her father's opium debts and rescuing her family from poverty; predictably, Mei Kwei quickly rebels against his possessiveness and finally spurns him for Austin Tong, a wealthy young entrepreneur. It isn't until Mei Kwei meets the unconventional French priest Fran?ois Martin, however, that she finally falls in love. Lim richly recreates Malayan life during this turbulent period, and she is a vivid chronicler of the intersection of Eastern and Western mores. The wealth of detail sometimes obscures the characters themselves, but once the narrative acquires momentum, the forbidden passion between Mei Kwei and Father Martin attains a compelling intensity. (Nov.) FYI: The Bondmaid is forthcoming in paper from Warner Books.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
This lush tale, set in 1950s Malaya, will find eager readers among the Thorn Birds crowd--those who prefer their romance full of foreshadowing and heartbreak. The heroine is Mei Kwei, born in 1934 with a tiny teardrop mole under her right eye, considered an ill omen. Being born a girl was ill omen enough: Mei Kwei's father has no interest in female children. Mei Kwei grows up into beauty, learning to use stolen lessons from the nuns' English Catholic school to hold herself against her mother's indifference, her older brother's sly malevolence, and her father's descent into opium. Grandmother's grave becomes a comfort and, later, a trysting place for Mei Kwei and the blue-eyed French priest she comes to love, mostly in secret and from afar. The old man who covets her and the young one who marries her, the Communist terrorists and the British soldiers, are but background to this relationship, where lovers' thoughts are always clear to one another and where a handkerchief can become an erotic talisman. GraceAnne A. DeCandido
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
AN ARTFUL VIEW OF ANOTHER TIME IN A DISTANT PLACE,
This review is from: The Teardrop Story Woman: A Novel (Hardcover)
With The Teardop Story Woman, a starkly vivid canvas of 1934 Malayan life, Catherine Lim has produced an affecting yet chilling tale. Her richly embroidered glimpses into a hitherto little known culture fascinate, that society's misogynism appalls. This unlikely mix has resulted in an absorbing, substantive novel.While Mei Kwei, the heroine, is predictably beautiful, and Father Francois Martin, the hero, is predictably unavailable, the munificence of telling detail and artfully rendered description transcend a slender plot line. Damned into the world from the day of her birth because of a "despised slit between the tiny, quivering legs instead of the prized curl of flesh." Mei Kwei might have been bartered for whiskey, coffee powder, and cotton cloth had it not been for the intervention of Big Older Brother who screamed his protest. Three years her senior, he feeds her tidbits from his bowl, protects her from neighboring bullies, and later comes to her bed promising not to hurt her for he "knew the precise limits of his lust; she would still be passed on intact to her husband." Detested by her father and ignored by her mother, Mei Kwei turns to Second Grandmother, a former concubine with tiny bound feet who wears shoes the size of a doll's. The aged woman comforts Mei Kwei with stories, transporting the child into a privileged world she can scarcely imagine - sharp contrast to their impoverished existence. Thankfully, the young girl is almost preternaturally resilient, markedly resourceful, "Learning from an early age that females were a dependent class, living on surplus, she first grew timid, then canny...." She also longs for an education, gazing with hungry eyes through classroom windows. Impressed by Mei Kwei's intellectual promise, Sister St. Elizabeth persuades the girl's father, Ah Oon Koh, to let the child attend school. Mei Kwei's happiness in learning is short lived as the opium addicted Ah Oon Koh's soon becomes infuriated by his daughter's exposure to a foreign culture, her growing familiarity with a repugnant tongue. After he physically takes her from St. Margaret's convent school, a disheartened Mei Kwei burns her treasured exercise books. At her family's behest Mei Kwei agrees to see Old Yoong, one of the wealthiest men in Penang, who delights in exploring her face with his "hot dry mouth." But Mei Kwei is unable to tolerate the older man's attentions. Eventually, she accepts the proposal of Austin Tong, a Catholic convert and wealthy restauranteur. In return for her promise of marriage Austin lavishes her family with gifts and employs the irresponsible Big Older Brother. As Austin's wife she is able to care for her family, yet she continues to dream of the white missionary, Father Martin. She has made her bargain, but learns there is an even higher price to pay. Yet, it is a price that brings Father Martin back into her life one last time. Vivid scenes of life in Luping, Malaya some sixty years ago, such as women shearing their hair then binding their breasts to discourage marauding Japanese soldiers, the presenting of offerings - oranges and joss-sticks - to placate the Kek Lok temple gods, aromas of herbals teas, and odors of the marketplace are all presented in such lucid detail that scenes spring to vibrant life. Catherine Lim paints remarkable word pictures. Her portraits of the Tick Tock man, "a Chinese itinerant hawker pushing his food cart with one hand and knocking wooden clappers with the other," and Pig Auntie who raised swine yet "took great care to keep her fine eyebrows plucked into two delicate arches" are noteworthy. Placed against the backdrop of clashing cultures and mixed blood, all of Ms. Lim's characters enhance her fastidiously etched Malayan mural. The Teardrop Story Woman offers an artful view of another time in an intriguingly distant place.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Depressing book; enormous empathy for women in that culture,
By
This review is from: The Teardrop Story Woman: A Novel (Hardcover)
Well written, interesting story; I'm glad I read it. As a woman, however, I was dispirited by the cruel, dreary, unescapable life perpetrated on Asian females. Need to read something "light" after reading that one!
2.0 out of 5 stars
Finally finished it!!,
By
This review is from: The Teardrop Story Woman: A Novel (Hardcover)
I give this title one star for the window into another culture, time and place that it opens and one star for the romance - sure it's all been done before but I'm a [fan]for unattainable priests falling in love with women stuck in doomed marriages!It was a bit annoying that Mei Kwei was so perfect and precious and more beautiful than any woman who has ever roamed the earth, and that all of that is her curse. But that's the way these books work, I suppose! It wasn't a very readable book, I found myself pushing to get it finished so that I could move on to something a bit more devourable. Overall, not a bad read - the descriptions of the characters' surroundings and the characters' emotions are well-crafted, but apart from that, a bit of a drag.
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