Gate of Rage: A Novel of One Family Trapped by the Events at Tiananmen Square

by C.Y. Lee

Charles Hong escapes China to settle in Hong Kong in the 1940s, leaving behind his son and eventually reuniting with the boy after the opening of China, only to be drawn into China's freedom movement that led to the massacre at Tiananmen Square

309 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Chin Yang (C.Y.) Lee, born in Hunan, China, received a B.A. degree from Southwest Associated University, Kunming, China, and an M.F.A. with a major in playwriting from Yale University (1947).

Before his American education, Lee worked during World War II as Secretary to the Sawba of Mangshih, a small principality on the China-Burma border. The experience resulted in a series of articles published in the New Yorker magazine and, later, a book entitled The Sawba and His Secretary (British edition: A Corner of Heaven). A television series based on the book was made and aired in Taiwan.

Lee wrote his first novel, The Flower Drum Song, in San Francisco while he was city editor of a Chinese language newspaper in Chinatown. The book was a New York Times best-seller; as Flower Drum Song it subsequently became a Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical and a Universal film.
--excerpted from The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization

Lee died at his daughter's home in Los Angeles in November 2018.

Reviews

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mostly lousy novel about the Tiananmen Massacre: the characters are all stereotypes, most of the subplots are totally unnecessary, Lee's dialogue is frequently embarrassing, and he has no clue how to build suspense. Oddly enough, the penultimate chapter is quite impressive, incorporating facts and newspaper quotes into the fiction. It looks like I am either the first person on Goodreads to read and/or review this book, and I cannot recommend it.