Wooden Fish Songs [Paperback]

Ruthanne Lum McCunn (Author), King-Kok Cheung (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2007

"Wooden fish songs" were the laments sung by Chinese women left behind by husbands, sons, and brothers who, in the nineteenth century, sailed to America in quest of the good life - and found instead years of indentured servitude and racial discrimination. This novel focuses on Lue Gim Gong, a real-life Chinese pioneer, who seized the opportunity to go to America's "Gold Mountain." The story of his attempt to assimilate the new culture, his few successes and his frequent setbacks, is told not by himself but by the women who cared most about him: his mother in China, a New England spinster who loved him, and a friend and co-worker who was the daughter of slaves. Ruthanne Lum McCunn brings her characters to life against a backdrop that ranges from China, with its deep roots in tradition, to the stern imperatives of a New England mill town and to 1870s Florida, where Lue developed the new species of frost-hardy oranges for which he is today remembered.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

McCunn's second novel (after Thousand Pieces of Gold) returns to a subject she treated in the nonfiction Chinese-American Portraits, as she again tells an affecting story of a lonely, dedicated life. This is a fictionalized biography (documented with well-researched details) of unsung immigrant horticulturist Lue Gim Gong, who died in 1925 after breeding superior Florida citruses. Lue's tale is recounted from the viewpoints of three 19th-century women: Sum Jui, his mother in Toishan, anxious for her son among America's "foreign ghosts"; Fanny, the 40-ish fundamentalist spinster (and laudanum addict) in North Adams, Mass., who gives the teenaged Lue a home and a Christian education while falling in love with him; and Sheba, daughter of black slaves, who works with Lue in the citrus groves. The common theme is the appalling inhumanity endured by women, and sometimes by men, in all three cultures under the stress of cultural and religious notions. McCunn records Chinese infanticide, the sale and hard labor of children, the paralyzing dread of seeing a "fox ghost"; relatives and rapacious landlords; New Englanders' Bible-toting fury and xenophobia against "pagan" Asians; Southern cruelty toward newly emancipated African Americans; and icy racial hostility against the Chinese. Her skillful balance of individual stories and social history makes a poignant statement about the waste of lives. The author's own lament emerges in her title, which refers to a genre of women's songs for the menfolk who sought their livelihoods in the "Gold Mountain" of America.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The story of Lue Gim Gong, a Chinese immigrant who gave up his country and family to pursue his passion for botany, is told in this historical novel through the voices of three women representing three distinct cultures and three distinct points of view. We hear alternately from Sum Jui, Lue's mother, who lives with her husband's family in a small rural village in China; Fanny, a New England spinster who converts Lue to Christianity and encourages his botanical research but keeps him financially dependent; and Sheba, the daughter of slaves, who is a servant to Fanny's sister in Florida. Although the narratives provide much detail about the lives of these three women and the differences and similarities in their cultures, they never develop beyond types, and the story becomes tedious. Nevertheless, the reader learns something about Lue's work and is given the opportunity to think about cultural conflict, the evils of racism, and the opportunities lost to blind prejudice. McCunn is the author of the well-received Thousand Pieces of Gold: A Biographical Novel (1981). Recommended for most libraries.?Rebecca Stuhr-Rommereim, Grinnel Coll. Libs., Iowa
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 385 pages
• Publisher: University of Washington Press; 1st University of Washington Paperback Ed edition (September 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0295987146
• ISBN-13: 978-0295987149
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,367,626 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

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving and factual., April 14, 1998

By 

Mountain Gal (Los Gatos, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wooden Fish Songs (Paperback)

I received a copy of Wooden Fish Songs as a gift from my father, who is a familial descendent of Fanny, and the New England people with whom Lue Gim Gong lived in America. Many of my father's recollections about his relatives were given to the author as the book was written, and helped to maintain the story's factual basis. It is a moving historical account of the difficulty and pain encountered when east/west cultures came together, when differences in peoples were terribly feared, and when cultural mores and expectations within the family were not to be challenged - even for love.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful story weaving, June 23, 2000

By 

Kirsten Campbell (Somerville, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wooden Fish Songs (Paperback)

Wooden Fish Songs is a fascinating story that weaves together the worlds 19th Century China, New England and the post-Civil War South. McCunn's extensive research makes this true story come alive and her talent makes the three women who tell the story real and believable. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys Chinese literature and culture. This book portrays the difficult life not only for the Chinese immigrant in America, but also for the family left behind. I recommend this and any other of McCunn's works.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Untold story of Chinese horticulturalist in Florida, October 16, 2007

By 

Fellow Seeker (Livermore, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Wooden Fish Songs (Paperback)

I had a lot to reflect upon after reading this book. I was most surprised by when I realized about 3/4 way through that the book was essentially a biography. I wish the book jacket had highlighted the fact that Lum Gim Gong was a celebrated Chinese horticulturalist in Florida, and the author used her extensive research into his life to create this book. I would surmise that since all of his journals were destroyed, she moves the viewpoint to other characters and writes a novel to better draw the reader into the story. The book has one drawback in this hybrid form--it doesn't have a climax, as one would expect in a novel--but continues on a little long in the end to get all the biographical details in.

I loved the descriptions of life in a village in China, the New England town, and the Florida orchard. Sometimes the frequent change of view point between these very different societies feels abrupt, but it highlights the cultural disruption experienced by the characters as they move between these worlds. A strong underlying theme of the book is the dichotomy between how we treat people versus plants: 19th century society forced a separation between people of different races and between genders but the plants are improved and made stronger when they are combined and crossbred. This theme is made more poignant with the realization that the author has a Scottish American father and a Chinese mother and has probably lived with some of the discrimination described in the book.