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Heaven Lake
Winner of the 2004 Barnes and Noble Discover Award. Heaven Lake is about many things: China, God, passion, friendship, travel, even the reckless smuggling of hashish. But above all, this extraordinary debut is about the mysteries of love.
Vincent Saunders has graduated from college, left his small hometown in Illinois, and arrived in Taiwan as a Christian volunteer. After opening a ministry house, he meets a wealthy Taiwanese businessman, Mr. Gwa, who tells Vincent that on his far travels to western China he has discovered a beautiful young woman living near the famous landmark Heaven Lake. Elegant, regal, clever, she works as a lowly clerk in the local railway station. Gwa wishes to marry her, but is thwarted by the political conflict between China and Taiwan. In exchange for a sum of money, will Vincent travel to China on Gwa's behalf, take part in a counterfeit marriage, and bring her back to Taiwan for Gwa to marry legitimately? Vincent, largely innocent about the ways of the world, and believing that marriage is a sacrament, says no. Gwa is furious.
Soon though, everything Vincent understands about himself and his vocation in Taiwan changes. Supplementing his income from his sparsely attended Bible study classes, he teaches English to a group of enthusiastic schoolgirls—and it is his tender, complicated friendship with a student that forces him to abandon the ministry house and sends Vincent on a path toward spiritual reckoning. It also causes him to reconsider Gwa’s extraordinary proposition.
What follows is not just an exhilarating –sometimes harrowing-- journey to a remote city in China, but an exploration of love, passion, loneliness, and the nature of faith. John Dalton’s exquisite narrative arcs across China as gracefully as it plumbs the human heart, announcing a major new talent.
Vincent Saunders has graduated from college, left his small hometown in Illinois, and arrived in Taiwan as a Christian volunteer. After opening a ministry house, he meets a wealthy Taiwanese businessman, Mr. Gwa, who tells Vincent that on his far travels to western China he has discovered a beautiful young woman living near the famous landmark Heaven Lake. Elegant, regal, clever, she works as a lowly clerk in the local railway station. Gwa wishes to marry her, but is thwarted by the political conflict between China and Taiwan. In exchange for a sum of money, will Vincent travel to China on Gwa's behalf, take part in a counterfeit marriage, and bring her back to Taiwan for Gwa to marry legitimately? Vincent, largely innocent about the ways of the world, and believing that marriage is a sacrament, says no. Gwa is furious.
Soon though, everything Vincent understands about himself and his vocation in Taiwan changes. Supplementing his income from his sparsely attended Bible study classes, he teaches English to a group of enthusiastic schoolgirls—and it is his tender, complicated friendship with a student that forces him to abandon the ministry house and sends Vincent on a path toward spiritual reckoning. It also causes him to reconsider Gwa’s extraordinary proposition.
What follows is not just an exhilarating –sometimes harrowing-- journey to a remote city in China, but an exploration of love, passion, loneliness, and the nature of faith. John Dalton’s exquisite narrative arcs across China as gracefully as it plumbs the human heart, announcing a major new talent.
464 pages, Paperback
First published March 16, 2004
14 people are currently reading
706 people want to read
About the author
John Dalton
17 books31 followersJohn Dalton is the author of the novel, Heaven Lake, winner of the Barnes and Noble 2004 Discover Award in fiction and the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is currently a member of the English faculty at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where he teaches in their MFA Writing Program. John lives with his wife and two daughters in St. Louis.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 111 reviews
June 25, 2011
Thanks to Bobbi who recommended this book to me, lent it to me, and waited patiently before asking for it back, at which point I finally read it! I can see, Bobbi, why you said that you still cannot get the story out of your mind. The novel combines a virtual trip to China with a fascinating look at a young man's coming of age. The trip to China begins in Taiwan, where Vincent, a Presbyterian mission worker, falls prey to the charms of a predatory Chinese student. For the rest of the novel, as he renounces his mission work and undertakes a clearly illegal and foolhardy task for a Taiwanese businessman and suffers all the consequences of his decision to do so, Vincent redeems himself in what is a truly Christian way despite the fact that he no longer considers himself a mission worker. As Vincent travels across mainland China to its western edge, Dalton deliberately shows the varied towns and landscapes and enables the reader to feel the discomfort of the hard seats of the trains, the confusion of the train stations and bus depots, and the lonely sensation of being the sole Caucasian person in the midst of many who regard one with scorn or pity. Dalton is a skilled travel writer, and the Chinese tourist industry should give him an award. Vincent's epiphany comes when he visits Heaven Lake, a site in western China where tourists can spend the night in a Kazakh yurt and take in the incredible beauty of the area. (I googled the place, and yes, it is just as Dalton describes it, spectacular.) Vincent's kindness to so many, some of whom mistreat him, is epitomized in his calm conversations with the Christian believer Mr.Liang, whose home in Taiwan Vincent had used as a ministry house and which he continues live in while teaching English classes. Early on in the novel, I was disgusted with Vincent; by the end of the novel he had become a hero to me. Like Bobbi, I probably won't be able to get this novel out of my mind. Unlike Child's 61 Hours, it will stand the test of time. John Dalton's site says he's working on a second novel while teaching at Washington University on St. Louise. I hope he will be publishing it soon.
October 23, 2007
probably the worst book i've read in a few years. horrible writing. wordy. trite. no appealing characters. promising storyline turned far-fetched. lotta holes. pathetic.
on a positive note, this book was so bad that it inspired me. several reputable names gave this book good reviews (chicago tribune, san francisco chronicle, nytimes review). i can do much better than this.
on a positive note, this book was so bad that it inspired me. several reputable names gave this book good reviews (chicago tribune, san francisco chronicle, nytimes review). i can do much better than this.
September 19, 2020
I agree with a few of the reviewers I read, by paraphrasing - well written sentences, but the story wasn't quite up to snuff. A naive small-town Illinoisan becomes a missionary in Taiwan, fails as a missionary, and takes on a strange task without much thought, involving travel to rural mainland China. The travel and the culture clash stories were interesting, but did't all seem believable in the way they were written. I kept reading, though, to find out more about how the rural Chinese dealt with their own culture clash going to the big city. Interesting.
April 9, 2008
My hubby recommended this to me quite some time ago and I finally just got around to reading it while on vacation in Hawaii. He was right; it's a great read. It's almost like a combination of travel journal and soap opera. At first, I thought the book was going to be a boring account of a righteous American on a mission to convert the Chinese to christianity, but in the end it was a fascinating account of the main character's life abroad, Chinese culture, and the need to question conventional wisdom. All of this is wrapped up with a little love story and some amazing descriptions of mainland China geography. I was entertained, yet felt like I gained a greater knowledge of Chinese history and culture.
January 21, 2009
I friend of mine recommended this book because I am traveling to China, and enjoy novels that transport the reader to a new and different culture. I really loved this book. It's a finely crafted, beautifully written coming of age story about a young post-college American missionary who learns the very hard way that he's on the wrong path for himself. It's only party about faith - it's also part romance, part adventure novel, but mostly a story about youthful mistakes in an effort to find oneself, even when you're not looking to do that. The descriptions of Taiwan and China are vivid, and John Dalton is a gifted author, with a subtle writing style and an ability to delve deeply into human nature without telegraphing his intent.
Read
May 24, 2016A few pages into this book, I was so happy it was long. What a great feeling to know you're diving into a long reading journey, gripped by the voice and circumstances.
This book is a coming-of-age saga, a travelogue, and a redemption. At times it's quite bleak--which makes the ending even better.
What's best about it, though, is the writing style. I love the way John Dalton turns a phrase over in his hand like a jewel that catches the light.
This book is a coming-of-age saga, a travelogue, and a redemption. At times it's quite bleak--which makes the ending even better.
What's best about it, though, is the writing style. I love the way John Dalton turns a phrase over in his hand like a jewel that catches the light.
May 23, 2019
John Dalton's novel took me on a journey to Taiwan and China. The writing is top-notch and I felt as if I was immersed in both cultures. I love a strong sense of place in a novel and this one has two. I enjoyed reading it. The main character undergoes a total transformation during the novel and finds pain and love along the way.
September 14, 2020
I read this book because it was recommended in Taiwan in 100 Books and wow, was I impressed! The book is a beautifully written tribute to the author's four years living in Taiwan. It's a story about Vincent, a young missionary sent to a small Taiwanese city. A coming of age novel, the protagonist gains new perspectives on life, religion, love and just about everything else.
You can flip to any page of the book and find vivid sentences, entire paragraphs, like this one:
Taiwan in 100 Books tells us that it took the author eight years to write this book, and I have a feeling that the manuscript spent very little time in a dark drawer, forgotten or unattended to while life passed him by. Rather he worked and labored over the manuscript until it was ready, and only then did he release it into the wild. The author sent the manuscript to 12 publishers and five were interested!
What I especially admired about this book was its vision. Most expat authors write in the first person about their experiences abroad because they are focused on a story they want to tell. Dalton, however, took this a step further by not just considering the story he wanted to tell, but the best way to tell it. This is a telling example of the advantages to an approach not author-driven (to tell a story) but reader-driven (to create the best story for the reader). Dalton delivers on this promise all the way to the end of the book and never lets the reader down: every word and sentence has been written to exude a sense of fulfillment among a natural flow. It is Dalton's ability to take his intensely personal experiences and turn them into someone else's that allows the narrative to surpass any first-person "my experience in Taiwan" book. The novel format allowed him to add material that simultaneously exists in the periphery of every expat experience, and which gives both depth and breadth to the story. First, he took his own English-teacher experience and reworked it into a main character who is a missionary (who also, no surprise, teaches English on the side). From here, he explores stories and topics that are common elements of living in a foreign country (romance, customs, food, etc) that are surely based on purely personal experience. Then he introduces common characters one encounters or observes when living abroad (the street vendor, the English student, the drug-runner, the gangster, the business man, etc) all richly embellished because he is not limiting the story to his own interactions. Every character, whether friend or foe, is fleshed out to be sensitive, believable, and not always predictable. It's the perfect blending of travel experience and fiction. A brilliant rendering of the expat experience abroad.
This book is published by Scribner, so I was a little surprised that the text of the print book fell so tight to the margin near the binding which made it a little difficult to read. I also wonder what the meaning of the cover is. Is the woman Trudy? Kai-ling? Jia-ling? Probably none of the three. So who?
You can flip to any page of the book and find vivid sentences, entire paragraphs, like this one:
The crowd buckled and swayed. A small girl in cloth slippers, a toddler, stepped out of her bamboo stroller and scuttled back to an asphalt abutment. At her parents' insistence, she squatted down and, through cotton pajamas split open from zipper to rear seam, peed a warm runnel of urine onto the cobblestone sidewalk. She stood and marked its progress as it wound between stones and disappeared into a sewer grate. Vincent saw her flash a smile of tiny pearled teeth.
Taiwan in 100 Books tells us that it took the author eight years to write this book, and I have a feeling that the manuscript spent very little time in a dark drawer, forgotten or unattended to while life passed him by. Rather he worked and labored over the manuscript until it was ready, and only then did he release it into the wild. The author sent the manuscript to 12 publishers and five were interested!
What I especially admired about this book was its vision. Most expat authors write in the first person about their experiences abroad because they are focused on a story they want to tell. Dalton, however, took this a step further by not just considering the story he wanted to tell, but the best way to tell it. This is a telling example of the advantages to an approach not author-driven (to tell a story) but reader-driven (to create the best story for the reader). Dalton delivers on this promise all the way to the end of the book and never lets the reader down: every word and sentence has been written to exude a sense of fulfillment among a natural flow. It is Dalton's ability to take his intensely personal experiences and turn them into someone else's that allows the narrative to surpass any first-person "my experience in Taiwan" book. The novel format allowed him to add material that simultaneously exists in the periphery of every expat experience, and which gives both depth and breadth to the story. First, he took his own English-teacher experience and reworked it into a main character who is a missionary (who also, no surprise, teaches English on the side). From here, he explores stories and topics that are common elements of living in a foreign country (romance, customs, food, etc) that are surely based on purely personal experience. Then he introduces common characters one encounters or observes when living abroad (the street vendor, the English student, the drug-runner, the gangster, the business man, etc) all richly embellished because he is not limiting the story to his own interactions. Every character, whether friend or foe, is fleshed out to be sensitive, believable, and not always predictable. It's the perfect blending of travel experience and fiction. A brilliant rendering of the expat experience abroad.
This book is published by Scribner, so I was a little surprised that the text of the print book fell so tight to the margin near the binding which made it a little difficult to read. I also wonder what the meaning of the cover is. Is the woman Trudy? Kai-ling? Jia-ling? Probably none of the three. So who?
May 13, 2025
Just magnificent writing & story & narrative structure, a wonderful book, and I say this as one who moved to Taiwan from the US in 1995, which is in a general sense the situation described here in this novel. The author not only presents an account that is remarkably memorable and visceral and deeply felt, he also absolutely nails Taiwan (as well as China and Hong Kong) circa 1989-1990, a time when loads of well-meaning and naive Americans, Canadians, Brits, etc were lured to Asia by a sense of adventure and the easy money of teaching English. If we one day look back for a defining "expat English teacher novel", this will be it. I'd put it up there with Peter Hessler's "River Town", though that is a nonfiction and slightly different (more studied, less emotive) version of the same.
Heaven Lake's plot hinges on a couple common scams of the late 80s/early 90s––hashish smuggling, and Taiwanese men hiring Westerners to go to China for sham marriages as a way of smuggling in mainland brides. But this novel is ultimately a coming of age story of a young man leaving home, confronting his naivete and prejudices, and ultimately finding his place in a foreign land.
Heaven Lake's plot hinges on a couple common scams of the late 80s/early 90s––hashish smuggling, and Taiwanese men hiring Westerners to go to China for sham marriages as a way of smuggling in mainland brides. But this novel is ultimately a coming of age story of a young man leaving home, confronting his naivete and prejudices, and ultimately finding his place in a foreign land.
January 2, 2014
Americans didn't invent youthful naiveté, of course, but they patented it quickly. The recipe is built right into the country's founding myths, and our canon is dominated by stories of young men striding into the world, only to find it a more complicated and compromising place than they'd anticipated.
John Dalton's thoughtful debut novel, "Heaven Lake," is a worthy descendent of that tradition. His pious young hero, Vincent Saunders, heads off to Taiwan in 1989 to convert the Asian peasants living in darkness.
His family members, soybean farmers in the Midwest, find Vincent's fervor both noble and a little extravagant. "Why the Orientals?" one uncle asks while lending him money for the two-year mission. "Aren't there congregations all over southern Illinois looking for help?" But Vincent suspects he's meant for something grander than his sparse, dawdling hometown can accommodate. He thinks he "might have the ability to see deeply into other people's lives and offer them love and wisdom they might not even have known they were seeking."
The success of "Heaven Lake" depends largely on these braided strands of sympathy and mockery drawn through the story. Too much of one and Dalton would call his objectivity into question; too much of the other and Vincent's satire-riddled body would be tossed on the heap of semiautobiographical protagonists who show up in debut novels as target practice for authors' self-hatred.
Yes, Vincent is something of a country bumpkin, "a shrewd youth," as Nathaniel Hawthorne smirked in his own treatment of this theme almost 200 years ago. He's the kind of prude who says, "I'm not the prude you think I am," thereby confirming his prudery. But if a lifetime of fervent prayer and moral discipline hasn't made him especially worldly, it has made him especially confident, which is what he needs to fly halfway around the world to open a Bible school in Toulio, a small town 20 miles from Taipei.
His first shock is discovering that Toulio is, in fact, larger and more developed than the town he left behind in Illinois. The "peasants" don't immediately see how much they need him or the light of Christ. And what's worse, he's desperately lonely. But reassured by his minister back in Taipei, Vincent begins teaching English to those willing to endure a little Bible instruction in the process. He counsels his landlord's crippled son and leads him into the comfort of the Gospels. And with the glorious example of his own purity, he tries to shame his drug-addled roommate into reformation.
None of these programs goes as planned, but the real crisis stems from an outlandishly forward young woman in his English class.
Back home, Vincent had been what Dalton calls "that rarest of things: a sexually fulfilled virgin." But in Taiwan, after months of physical and social isolation, Vincent finds the standard he upheld through college far more difficult to maintain. He knows there's no excuse - as a teacher, a Christian, and an adult - for accepting a student's persistent advances, but once he does, the rigid structure of his faith sags and snaps.
Suddenly, in the light of this sexual initiation, the straight and narrow columns into which Vincent accounted saints and sinners seem irrelevant. "He had to wonder if that talent for faith was worth anything at all, if it did nothing but lead you down a series of ever-narrowing pathways until the only real choice was collapse or more believing - fervent belief, belief of a hounded, even manic design that stormed against any contrary opinion." Having fallen into the worst cliché about lecherous missionaries, he's forced to admit, "It's a grayer, more complicated world than I ever imagined."
Just as he considers this for the first time, he's thrown out of his mission in disgrace. The plot drops so smoothly into greater and greater complexity that we barely register the shifts till Vincent is thoroughly entangled in a bizarre arrangement of commerce and desire. Discouraged and penniless, he agrees to help a wealthy Taiwanese businessman acquire a bride from China.
"Heaven Lake" never rushes, but it pulls us along with that mixture of anticipation and dread inspired by being lost in a strange place. As the story moves thousands of miles across the mainland and into the labyrinth of this scheme, Dalton demonstrates his remarkable skill at portraying the culture that Vincent finds so captivating and baffling. Old stereotypes about "inscrutable Orientals" fade into a far broader sense of inscrutable adulthood in which everything is indefinite and half glimpsed.
It's a far more nuanced treatment than "Lost in Translation," the widely praised film that showed the Japanese as unfathomably alien and soulless. Vincent finds the Asians endlessly puzzling, but his surprise always forces him to reevaluate himself and evolve from his own naiveté, rather than sink into the kind of smug depression that Bill Murray captured so well.
Of course, missionaries rarely come off looking good in fiction (or history), but this novel isn't so much anti-Christian as antipiety. With just the right touch of wit, Dalton analyzes the complex interaction of devotion and vanity, naiveté and spirituality. It's as though he's recorded the shattering of faith with a high-speed camera that allows him to play back the collapse for us, frame by frame in a captivating series of images.
The modest hope and humanity that Vincent finally clings to might look flimsy next to the shiny armor he used to wear, but in fact they're more durable and ultimately more transcendent than all his old rules. This is a story as sensitive to the complexities and beauties of China as to the territory of the human heart.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0406/p1...
John Dalton's thoughtful debut novel, "Heaven Lake," is a worthy descendent of that tradition. His pious young hero, Vincent Saunders, heads off to Taiwan in 1989 to convert the Asian peasants living in darkness.
His family members, soybean farmers in the Midwest, find Vincent's fervor both noble and a little extravagant. "Why the Orientals?" one uncle asks while lending him money for the two-year mission. "Aren't there congregations all over southern Illinois looking for help?" But Vincent suspects he's meant for something grander than his sparse, dawdling hometown can accommodate. He thinks he "might have the ability to see deeply into other people's lives and offer them love and wisdom they might not even have known they were seeking."
The success of "Heaven Lake" depends largely on these braided strands of sympathy and mockery drawn through the story. Too much of one and Dalton would call his objectivity into question; too much of the other and Vincent's satire-riddled body would be tossed on the heap of semiautobiographical protagonists who show up in debut novels as target practice for authors' self-hatred.
Yes, Vincent is something of a country bumpkin, "a shrewd youth," as Nathaniel Hawthorne smirked in his own treatment of this theme almost 200 years ago. He's the kind of prude who says, "I'm not the prude you think I am," thereby confirming his prudery. But if a lifetime of fervent prayer and moral discipline hasn't made him especially worldly, it has made him especially confident, which is what he needs to fly halfway around the world to open a Bible school in Toulio, a small town 20 miles from Taipei.
His first shock is discovering that Toulio is, in fact, larger and more developed than the town he left behind in Illinois. The "peasants" don't immediately see how much they need him or the light of Christ. And what's worse, he's desperately lonely. But reassured by his minister back in Taipei, Vincent begins teaching English to those willing to endure a little Bible instruction in the process. He counsels his landlord's crippled son and leads him into the comfort of the Gospels. And with the glorious example of his own purity, he tries to shame his drug-addled roommate into reformation.
None of these programs goes as planned, but the real crisis stems from an outlandishly forward young woman in his English class.
Back home, Vincent had been what Dalton calls "that rarest of things: a sexually fulfilled virgin." But in Taiwan, after months of physical and social isolation, Vincent finds the standard he upheld through college far more difficult to maintain. He knows there's no excuse - as a teacher, a Christian, and an adult - for accepting a student's persistent advances, but once he does, the rigid structure of his faith sags and snaps.
Suddenly, in the light of this sexual initiation, the straight and narrow columns into which Vincent accounted saints and sinners seem irrelevant. "He had to wonder if that talent for faith was worth anything at all, if it did nothing but lead you down a series of ever-narrowing pathways until the only real choice was collapse or more believing - fervent belief, belief of a hounded, even manic design that stormed against any contrary opinion." Having fallen into the worst cliché about lecherous missionaries, he's forced to admit, "It's a grayer, more complicated world than I ever imagined."
Just as he considers this for the first time, he's thrown out of his mission in disgrace. The plot drops so smoothly into greater and greater complexity that we barely register the shifts till Vincent is thoroughly entangled in a bizarre arrangement of commerce and desire. Discouraged and penniless, he agrees to help a wealthy Taiwanese businessman acquire a bride from China.
"Heaven Lake" never rushes, but it pulls us along with that mixture of anticipation and dread inspired by being lost in a strange place. As the story moves thousands of miles across the mainland and into the labyrinth of this scheme, Dalton demonstrates his remarkable skill at portraying the culture that Vincent finds so captivating and baffling. Old stereotypes about "inscrutable Orientals" fade into a far broader sense of inscrutable adulthood in which everything is indefinite and half glimpsed.
It's a far more nuanced treatment than "Lost in Translation," the widely praised film that showed the Japanese as unfathomably alien and soulless. Vincent finds the Asians endlessly puzzling, but his surprise always forces him to reevaluate himself and evolve from his own naiveté, rather than sink into the kind of smug depression that Bill Murray captured so well.
Of course, missionaries rarely come off looking good in fiction (or history), but this novel isn't so much anti-Christian as antipiety. With just the right touch of wit, Dalton analyzes the complex interaction of devotion and vanity, naiveté and spirituality. It's as though he's recorded the shattering of faith with a high-speed camera that allows him to play back the collapse for us, frame by frame in a captivating series of images.
The modest hope and humanity that Vincent finally clings to might look flimsy next to the shiny armor he used to wear, but in fact they're more durable and ultimately more transcendent than all his old rules. This is a story as sensitive to the complexities and beauties of China as to the territory of the human heart.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0406/p1...
June 29, 2022
This was the second read of this book and I loved it the second time, probably more than the first. I’d forgotten much of second half of the book. I love that this book combines travel, China/Taiwan relations, the problem with Christianity/missionaries, and ultimately love.
November 7, 2008
John Dalton’s first novel places the reader with a young missionary in modern day Taiwan. Vincent traveled halfway around the world from the Midwest to Taiwan to teach English and spread the word of God. But his goal is harshly detoured when he indulges in a sexual affair with one of his teenage students. The affair forces him to take an offer from a wealthy businessman to go to Mainland China to retrieve the man’s future wife. What unfolds is a travel adventure into the depths of a curious country and an even deeper adventure into Vincent’s own relationship (or lack thereof) with his faith.
Heaven Lake causes the reader to constantly feel sorry for poor Vincent because of the predicaments he finds himself in. But this pity gives way to relief and pride in the young man because of his eventual shedding of guilt and acceptance of life without strict Christian guidelines. And the realism of the character – his ability to make mistakes (constantly) in love and in cultural misconceptions – is easy to relate to. His growth is apparent by the end of the novel.
At one of Vincent’s most enlightened moments, while he’s visiting Heaven Lake after his long and tumultuous journey through China, he contemplates a “lifetime of partial answers and shady intuitions,” a life without believing in Jesus. He came to the realization that “you could navigate your life without knowing” all of life’s answers. He concludes, “You could sometimes love the mystery as devoutly as the believers loved their gods.” This is a breakthrough for Vincent, who essentially viewed everything in life through the context of Christianity. Instead of focusing on what would happen in the afterlife, he learned to live his life.
Heaven Lake causes the reader to constantly feel sorry for poor Vincent because of the predicaments he finds himself in. But this pity gives way to relief and pride in the young man because of his eventual shedding of guilt and acceptance of life without strict Christian guidelines. And the realism of the character – his ability to make mistakes (constantly) in love and in cultural misconceptions – is easy to relate to. His growth is apparent by the end of the novel.
At one of Vincent’s most enlightened moments, while he’s visiting Heaven Lake after his long and tumultuous journey through China, he contemplates a “lifetime of partial answers and shady intuitions,” a life without believing in Jesus. He came to the realization that “you could navigate your life without knowing” all of life’s answers. He concludes, “You could sometimes love the mystery as devoutly as the believers loved their gods.” This is a breakthrough for Vincent, who essentially viewed everything in life through the context of Christianity. Instead of focusing on what would happen in the afterlife, he learned to live his life.
January 21, 2011
Thank you Bobbi and Jane for recommending this novel! I had many different emotions while reading it. At first I didn't know if I was going to make it through because I didn't really like Vincent. But as I stuck with it, he grew on me, because of the changes in him; by the end of the story I thought he was great and caring and a wonderful friend, etc. The descriptions of his travels through Mainland China were spectacular. I felt like I was right there on those terrible train and bus rides with Vincent, feeling every ache and pain of sitting on the wooden bench for hours, smelling all the dirty workmen, all the senses were involved in reading those chapters. And the difference in the cultures and Vincent's ignorance or innocence when dealing with any of the Chinese characters in the book sometimes was heart-renching and very well done by the author. But I have to say, it sure doesn't make me want to travel to China anytime soon!!
I can't believe this is John Dalton's first novel. He seems like such a seasoned writer. I will look his future work for sure.
I can't believe this is John Dalton's first novel. He seems like such a seasoned writer. I will look his future work for sure.
February 25, 2009
A novel that tells the story of Vincent, a recent college graduate who travels to Taiwan to be a Christian volunteer and English teacher. Initally Vincent is a little bit self-righteous (and annoying!), but before long, everything that he understands about himself and the world changes as he forms a complicated relationship with a high school girl whom he teaches. Forced to leave Taiwan in scandal, Vincent accepts an offer from a local businessman who wishes to marry a woman living in the desert in Northwest China. In exchange for money, Vincent will travel to the woman's hometown, participate in a counterfeit marriage, and bring the woman back to the businessman so that he can marry her legitimately. Most of the book is about this journey. It's a coming-of-age tale in many ways as Vincent comes to know himself and his faith in entirely new ways throughout the course of his time in Asia. The characters were richly drawn. A very enjoyable book!
August 3, 2011
There was no character growth or spiritual development in the main characters--so what was the point of the book? To show that Christians sin like everyone else? To show that mission work is done by flawed people? Fine, We know that. However, I do not want to hear ("see" in the case of the written word) the foul language, the detailed descriptions of lovemaking, assists in the purcahse of women for prositition or, perhaps worst of all, the flippant attitude to all things Christian or missionwork oriented. At the very least, the main character should come to recognize his faults and sin and attempt to serve God in a way that would be pleasing to Him and helpful to the people of the town where he works. Otherwise what was the point of all he endured and brought upon himself? Mission work has received a bad name in the world because of characters such as the one in this book--shame on you John Dalton for not lifting him out of the gutter .
December 12, 2007
This book unfolded in an unexpected way. I don't mean that it was particularly shocking or surprising, more that it was a different book than I expected it to be, in a good way.
The book is about a young Christian who tried to head a ministry in Taiwan during the early 1990s. He arrives in a foreign country with all of the best intentions, but soon realizes his own naivete. The book is about his own transformation and faith, which is influenced by the people that he meets and a series of events that shape his life.
I liked the main character, Vincent. I liked that he wasn't at all perfect and was just open to the possibilities that came his way. He was conflicted. He was exactly the type of person that you would want to know in real life. I wanted to give him a hug, after all of the crap he went through!
The book is about a young Christian who tried to head a ministry in Taiwan during the early 1990s. He arrives in a foreign country with all of the best intentions, but soon realizes his own naivete. The book is about his own transformation and faith, which is influenced by the people that he meets and a series of events that shape his life.
I liked the main character, Vincent. I liked that he wasn't at all perfect and was just open to the possibilities that came his way. He was conflicted. He was exactly the type of person that you would want to know in real life. I wanted to give him a hug, after all of the crap he went through!
October 24, 2010
Although the book has its moments, I was disappointed with its inaccuracies. It definitely captures the Asian culture in which it is set. The characters and world are quite vivid. It's obvious the author has experienced the culture and done his research. But the main character is represented as a fairly conservative missionary type, and his transformation from saint to sinner seems very cliché. It's perhaps the view a Liberal would take of a conservative Christian -- always questioning the sincerity and integrity of the person without really understanding who they are. But it does not accurately represent the real such people I know and have experienced my whole life. Thus,I had trouble buying it. I also thought the story's paced waned in the middle. The end left me empty because of the character issues above. Still, the prose is well written.
May 9, 2016
Books which detail a journey are one my favorite because it inspires me to travel or make me feel as if I was traveling. The sights which Vincent visits are so uncommonly mentioned and so well described that it leaves one intrigued. Dalton is also great at creating a personality for its characters since I could really well imagine a lot of the subjects existing in real life. Alec in particular reminded me of an ex who was an avid traveler and had the same demeanor. And Gloria seemed to fit so well into the description of an ex roommate that I was amused. The book is a realistic account of all the things that could go wrong when one is young and comes from a very small town into a new culture. Heaven Lake might not seek to tarnish the reputation of religious teachers but to serve as a reminder of the mistakes people make and the repercussions.
August 6, 2016
Heavenly Writing
I read “Heaven Lake” at least ten years ago and was recently puzzled to find that I hadn’t left a review. What’s not so surprising however is that the novel has remained on my bookshelf and I knew exactly where to find it. Prized possessions are like that. After revisiting the first paragraph, I can see why I kept it. Few novels rate a second read and fewer still a third. “Heaven Lake” easily deserves a second read. Dalton’s writing appears to hold up well over time.
“Heaven Lake” is a superb novel told in exquisite and compelling prose that at times seems effortless, description and perception blended into an intimate portrayal of the young missionary Vincent whose discoveries in China easily become the reader’s discoveries. I can highly recommend joining Vincent in his journey across mainland China.
I read “Heaven Lake” at least ten years ago and was recently puzzled to find that I hadn’t left a review. What’s not so surprising however is that the novel has remained on my bookshelf and I knew exactly where to find it. Prized possessions are like that. After revisiting the first paragraph, I can see why I kept it. Few novels rate a second read and fewer still a third. “Heaven Lake” easily deserves a second read. Dalton’s writing appears to hold up well over time.
“Heaven Lake” is a superb novel told in exquisite and compelling prose that at times seems effortless, description and perception blended into an intimate portrayal of the young missionary Vincent whose discoveries in China easily become the reader’s discoveries. I can highly recommend joining Vincent in his journey across mainland China.
December 7, 2009
What a sublime book. A young and earnest "Jesus teacher" from small town Illinois comes to Taiwan to gain converts for the church. Exceedingly lonely even with the Bible to comfort him, he gets involved with a precocious teenage girl, unable to resist taking her to bed, after which he's beaten by her brother and disgraced in the eyes of the town. So he leaves for mainland China to marry by proxy a beautiful woman in the far north and bring her back across the border to marry, for real, a wealthy man who's paying him for this task. Things go wrong, of course.
This is a beautiful book, full of feeling, and full of restraint also. The author has great control of his subject, and clearly knows a lot about China, as well as the human heart.
This is a beautiful book, full of feeling, and full of restraint also. The author has great control of his subject, and clearly knows a lot about China, as well as the human heart.
July 21, 2020
Toward the middle of John Dalton’s Heaven Lake, Vincent Saunders reflects that “a line of experience was taking shape.” A young “Jesus teacher” from Red Bud, Illinois, Vincent travels to the small village of Toulio, Taiwan, to teach English and convert locals. Dalton’s narrative chronicles Vincent’s physical and spiritual journey from Illinois to Toulio, from Hong Kong to Urumchi, and, finally, from Urumchi back to Toulio. In many ways, Heaven Lake is a travel narrative, one featuring an unlikely, often unlikable, protagonist who encounters a series of devastations and disappointments during his voyages.
Vincent arrives in Toulio in 1989, four months after the tragedy at Tiananmen Square. He is filled with naïve optimism and the desire to please Reverend Phillips, the teacher who trained him in Taipei. With Vincent, Dalton constructs a complex character, one who can be impetuous and colonizing and oblivious to the consequences of his actions. Growing up in a religious family and a small, Midwestern town, Vincent wends his way toward sexual maturity. In Illinois, he chose not to consummate his relationship with his childhood sweetheart, but in Toulio he eventually comes to instruct Trudy, an odd, displaced student of his, both in matters of English and sex. Trudy is the aggressor, and Vincent lets her draw a new “line of experience,” one that leads Vincent to the next part of his voyage: a struggle with faith and honesty.
To complicate matters, Vincent becomes involved with Mr. Gwa, a Taiwanese businessman and quasi underground-world figure. Gwa wants to pay Vincent to travel from Toulio to Urumchi and marry Kai-ling, with whom Vincent thinks Gwa is in love. At that time, Taiwanese citizens couldn’t marry Mainland Chinese in China. Gwa explains to Vincent, “There’s no law against it, but there’s no procedure, no paperwork, no communication on either side that would make such a marriage possible.” Gwa’s plan: Vincent will marry Kai-ling in Urumchi and return with her to Toulio, where they will dissolve the marriage and then Gwa will marry Kai-ling.
At first Vincent refuses, but after Trudy’s brother finds out about Vincent and his sister, severely beats Vincent, and promises nightly beatings as long as Vincent remains in Toulio, he accepts Gwa’s offer. Following the beating, Vincent adopts an extremely malleable relationship with the truth. He lies to dampen the fallout from his actions and contorts the truth for convenience. He needs to leave Toulio immediately, but he doesn’t want to be disgraced. When he writes a letter to Reverend Phillips to explain why he’s abandoning his missionary post, he pledges “to compose this letter with as much honesty as circumstances allowed.” Earlier in the novel, Vincent realizes that “I could come to believe almost anything I say or do.”
Heaven Lake is divided into five parts. Vincent starts his voyage across Mainland China in the novel’s third part, and this is where Vincent loses his boyish naivete as he gradually awakens to the world’s horrors and inequalities. Dalton renders Vincent’s voyages across the Mainland with beautiful, lyrical prose. This third section of Heaven Lake contains some of the most memorable writing about place I’ve ever read. For many readers, Mainland China in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s is exotic, unfamiliar terrain. Dalton points out, “Just as places, regions, cities differed from one another in elevation and climate and population, so, too, did they vary in terms of a distinct, self-evident, and shared sense of well-being.” Vincent’s journey takes him to Lanzhou in west-central China, “the most unhappy place he had ever visited” and ultimately to Urumchi. Vincent remarks that Urumchi “wasn’t a city that harbored much real interest in liability or personal suffering.”
By the time he reaches Urumchi, Vincent has shed most of his optimism; in its place, a weary disillusionment. “He did not know where this new brand of cynicism was leading him; if to a remote, closed-hearted place, then fine, he thought so be it.” His time in Urumchi, and his sham courting of Kai-ling also doesn’t unfold the way Vincent expected. Vincent discovers that Kai-ling doesn’t love Gwa and is engaged to another young man. Vincent has to explain this situation to Gwa via a series of telexes, and his initial job as Kai-ling’s faux suitor expands into myriad roles: “family adviser, a schemer, a debt collector, a hanger-on.”
When Kai-ling rejects Vincent/Gwa’s marriage offer, this draws another complicated line of experience for Vincent. The events that transpire during Vincent’s remaining time in Urumchi and his trip back to Toulio make him realize “It’s a grayer, more complicated world than I ever imagined.” Heaven Lake isn’t so much a coming-of-age novel as a narrative that pulverizes an entitled youth oblivious to his white privilege. There’s also redemption, and even love, for Vincent by the end of the novel. Vincent re-evaluates his faith, and his travels have opened him to a more realistic sense of wonder. “You could occasionally be awed by the mystery. You could sometimes love the mystery as devoutly as the believers loved their gods.”
Dalton is an outstanding fiction writer who explores desire, faith, and truth through complicated, unforgettable characters and gorgeous, evocative prose. Perhaps his ultimate authorial gift is the unflinching manner in which he asks readers to confront the consequences of their own desires and actions. He often seems to ask, What would you do if you were Vincent? How would you make amends and take responsibility if you had fucked up in ways that had irreversible effects on the lives of others?
Vincent arrives in Toulio in 1989, four months after the tragedy at Tiananmen Square. He is filled with naïve optimism and the desire to please Reverend Phillips, the teacher who trained him in Taipei. With Vincent, Dalton constructs a complex character, one who can be impetuous and colonizing and oblivious to the consequences of his actions. Growing up in a religious family and a small, Midwestern town, Vincent wends his way toward sexual maturity. In Illinois, he chose not to consummate his relationship with his childhood sweetheart, but in Toulio he eventually comes to instruct Trudy, an odd, displaced student of his, both in matters of English and sex. Trudy is the aggressor, and Vincent lets her draw a new “line of experience,” one that leads Vincent to the next part of his voyage: a struggle with faith and honesty.
To complicate matters, Vincent becomes involved with Mr. Gwa, a Taiwanese businessman and quasi underground-world figure. Gwa wants to pay Vincent to travel from Toulio to Urumchi and marry Kai-ling, with whom Vincent thinks Gwa is in love. At that time, Taiwanese citizens couldn’t marry Mainland Chinese in China. Gwa explains to Vincent, “There’s no law against it, but there’s no procedure, no paperwork, no communication on either side that would make such a marriage possible.” Gwa’s plan: Vincent will marry Kai-ling in Urumchi and return with her to Toulio, where they will dissolve the marriage and then Gwa will marry Kai-ling.
At first Vincent refuses, but after Trudy’s brother finds out about Vincent and his sister, severely beats Vincent, and promises nightly beatings as long as Vincent remains in Toulio, he accepts Gwa’s offer. Following the beating, Vincent adopts an extremely malleable relationship with the truth. He lies to dampen the fallout from his actions and contorts the truth for convenience. He needs to leave Toulio immediately, but he doesn’t want to be disgraced. When he writes a letter to Reverend Phillips to explain why he’s abandoning his missionary post, he pledges “to compose this letter with as much honesty as circumstances allowed.” Earlier in the novel, Vincent realizes that “I could come to believe almost anything I say or do.”
Heaven Lake is divided into five parts. Vincent starts his voyage across Mainland China in the novel’s third part, and this is where Vincent loses his boyish naivete as he gradually awakens to the world’s horrors and inequalities. Dalton renders Vincent’s voyages across the Mainland with beautiful, lyrical prose. This third section of Heaven Lake contains some of the most memorable writing about place I’ve ever read. For many readers, Mainland China in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s is exotic, unfamiliar terrain. Dalton points out, “Just as places, regions, cities differed from one another in elevation and climate and population, so, too, did they vary in terms of a distinct, self-evident, and shared sense of well-being.” Vincent’s journey takes him to Lanzhou in west-central China, “the most unhappy place he had ever visited” and ultimately to Urumchi. Vincent remarks that Urumchi “wasn’t a city that harbored much real interest in liability or personal suffering.”
By the time he reaches Urumchi, Vincent has shed most of his optimism; in its place, a weary disillusionment. “He did not know where this new brand of cynicism was leading him; if to a remote, closed-hearted place, then fine, he thought so be it.” His time in Urumchi, and his sham courting of Kai-ling also doesn’t unfold the way Vincent expected. Vincent discovers that Kai-ling doesn’t love Gwa and is engaged to another young man. Vincent has to explain this situation to Gwa via a series of telexes, and his initial job as Kai-ling’s faux suitor expands into myriad roles: “family adviser, a schemer, a debt collector, a hanger-on.”
When Kai-ling rejects Vincent/Gwa’s marriage offer, this draws another complicated line of experience for Vincent. The events that transpire during Vincent’s remaining time in Urumchi and his trip back to Toulio make him realize “It’s a grayer, more complicated world than I ever imagined.” Heaven Lake isn’t so much a coming-of-age novel as a narrative that pulverizes an entitled youth oblivious to his white privilege. There’s also redemption, and even love, for Vincent by the end of the novel. Vincent re-evaluates his faith, and his travels have opened him to a more realistic sense of wonder. “You could occasionally be awed by the mystery. You could sometimes love the mystery as devoutly as the believers loved their gods.”
Dalton is an outstanding fiction writer who explores desire, faith, and truth through complicated, unforgettable characters and gorgeous, evocative prose. Perhaps his ultimate authorial gift is the unflinching manner in which he asks readers to confront the consequences of their own desires and actions. He often seems to ask, What would you do if you were Vincent? How would you make amends and take responsibility if you had fucked up in ways that had irreversible effects on the lives of others?
December 29, 2014
Excellent story with a few plot twists and vivid imagery of the locales the book takes you through. Initially I thought it was a "Christian" story but was ultimately pleasantly surprised. As the story develops, what you think is inevitable never happens and the events keep you hooked throughout the process. Recommeneded
July 4, 2017
When he graduates from Southern Illinois University, the last thing Vincent Saunders wants to do is go back home to work for the rest of his life. In preparation for this he has taken a number of courses in Mandarin Chinese, and, with the massacre at Tiananmen Square now some four months old, he volunteers for a two-year stint in the Overseas Christian Fellowship. With his language skills, he is first sent to Taipei, Taiwan, for more training, and then on to the town of Toulio to open a ministry, begin Bible studies, and teach rudimentary English. Things go well for a while, but he finds the crushing loneliness hard to bear. Innocently, he begins an ill-advised affair with a young, precocious schoolgirl. With disastrous results. Forced to resign the ministry, he accepts a proposition an unscrupulous Chinese businessman, Mr. Gwa, has made to him weeks ago, and which he refused at the time: go to Mainland China, marry a beautiful girl he has met in his travels, and then bring her back to Hong Kong for Gwa to marry. This is an intriguing story of failure and atonement, and Author John Dalton resolutely puts his twenty-four-year-old protagonist through the wringer as he travels through the murk of Communist society to the far northwest desert province of Xinjiang. This is probably unlike anything else you've read; as a comparison, Heaven Lake is somewhat reminiscent of the films of David Lean, particularly Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, where the main characters are always larger than life, enduring against a harsh, alien backdrop. Great entertainment!
November 22, 2020
Vincent Saunders travels to Taiwan to serve as a volunteer with Oversees Christian Fellowship teaching English and Bible studies in the town of Toulio. It's harder than he ever imagined it could be. A wealthy Taiwanese businessman comes to one of his classes and later invites him out to dinner and a tour of some nightclubs. Vincent is offended - he's a Jesus Teacher, after all. Then the real reason comes out. Mr. Gwa loves a woman in mainland China and it's impossible to arrange a marriage. (set in the years prior to Taiwan being returned to the mainland.) Would Vincent travel to remote northwest China, marry her and bring her back to Taiwan to divorce her so Mr. Gwa could marry her legitimately? Absolutely not. Well, some bad decisions on Vincent's part make him later reconsider and agree to the proposal. Can he follow through?
This wasn't at all what I was expecting. The note I'd made to myself as a teaser "American man serving as missionary in China finds it's harder than he expected." while right, wasn't adequate. The "F-word" is used throughout by another character and that turned me off what I had mentally classified as Christian fiction. I debated quitting, but kept reading to see if the book redeemed itself in the end. I can't decide.
This wasn't at all what I was expecting. The note I'd made to myself as a teaser "American man serving as missionary in China finds it's harder than he expected." while right, wasn't adequate. The "F-word" is used throughout by another character and that turned me off what I had mentally classified as Christian fiction. I debated quitting, but kept reading to see if the book redeemed itself in the end. I can't decide.
June 7, 2018
I am in Taiwan right now where part of this book takes place. The main character is a volunteer missionary to Taiwan and arrives as a true believer, but as events transpire in the book, he loses his faith and ends up on a long trip to far western China to pick up a bride for a Taiwanese businessman. Too many of the events in the early part of the book didn't seem to ring true for me. As a child of missionaries, I found the missionary part a bit off, and the events that caused him to lose faith and head to China as being somewhat implausible. Still, once he was traveling in China and waiting to marry a woman in western China, somehow the book seemed to ring more true. I found, in the end, that I liked the book and the main character as he became more of a true and kind "Christian" after he had given up on his faith. Brings out Taiwan and China well in the early 1990s and Vincent is a sympathetic character.
March 26, 2020
Heaven Lake is a debut novel that I first spotted at a thrift store, then later acquired a copy of, then had on my nightstand for a good, long time. I am glad I finally read (and enjoyed) it! This book is about a young missionary volunteering in Taiwan, and his subsequent journey through mainland China. A lot of exciting things happen in this book, and there is also a lot of great description of people and places. The travel aspect of the book was my favorite, even when the main character, Vincent, was staying put in Taiwan, but especially when he was journeying through the mainland. All the characters are very well described and fleshed out. My only complaint is the combination of the overall length and the slowness of some sections of the book. I was pretty close to giving this five stars and if I could would give it 4.5.
June 16, 2019
I read Heaven Lake by John Dalton when it first came out. I had just finished an 8-week workshop that he taught. In fact, I was in the class the night he announced that the manuscript had been sold. In short, it is a beautifully written, character-driven novel that I didn't want to put down. It is written with great sensitivity and attention to detail. The remarkable sense of place reflects his familiarity with Taiwan and mainland China. This work deserves the numerous accolades it has received.
February 11, 2020
Really interesting story of an idealistic young man who goes to China to spread the gospel. His world gets turned upside down in a very short time as his struggles to find his place lead him astray. The journey across China and the people he meets on the journey help him to grow up and face his own demons. I’m glad there was a map of China in the book. I kept a bookmark there and constantly referred to it to track the journey. I learned a lot about the culture.
November 13, 2022
This is a great piece of literary fiction. At first, I actually found myself loathing the main character, who is a self-righteous, judgy missionary. As the story progresses, and he evolves, he becomes much more sympathetic. This is really great writing with an extremely deep and layered character at it's center.
December 5, 2024
I enjoyed this one. It wasn't what I expected, which was a pleasant surprise. The beginning gave me the idea that it was going to be a preachy missionary story, but it turned ot to be quite the opposite, and much more interesting. Learning a bit more about the history and terrain of China is always good, along with a good story.
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