Green Island

by Shawna Yang Ryan

A stunning story of love, betrayal, and family, set against the backdrop of a changing Taiwan over the course of the twentieth century.

February 28, 1947: Trapped inside the family home amid an uprising that has rocked Taipei, Dr. Tsai delivers his youngest daughter, the unnamed narrator of Green Island, just after midnight as the city is plunged into martial law. In the following weeks, as the Chinese Nationalists act to crush the opposition, Dr. Tsai becomes one of the many thousands of people dragged away from their families and thrown into prison. His return, after more than a decade, is marked by alienation from his loved ones and paranoia among his community — conflicts that loom over the growing bond he forms with his youngest daughter. Years later, this troubled past follows her to the United States, where, as a mother and a wife, she too is forced to decide between what is right and what might save her family — the same choice she witnessed her father make many years before.

As the novel sweeps across six decades and two continents, the life of the narrator shadows the course of Taiwan’s history from the end of Japanese colonial rule to the decades under martial law and, finally, to Taiwan’s transformation into a democracy. But, above all, Green Island is a lush and lyrical story of a family and a nation grappling with the nuances of complicity and survival, raising the question: how far would you be willing to go for the ones you love?

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Asia, Historical, China, Asian Literature, Family

400 pages, Hardcover

First published February 23, 2016

About the author

SHAWNA YANG RYAN is a former Fulbright scholar and the author of Water Ghosts (Penguin Press 2009) and Green Island (Knopf 2016). She is the Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. Her writing has appeared in ZYZZYVA, The Asian American Literary Review, The Rumpus, Lithub, and The Washington Post. Her work has received the Association for Asian American Studies Best Book Award in Creative Writing, the Elliot Cades Emerging Writer award, and an American Book Award.

Reviews

[Taryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brutal, beautifully written family epic that is set during the political turmoil in post-WWII Taiwan. The story of the Tsai family spans six decades and is seamlessly woven around actual events. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys realistic historical fiction and enjoys deeply touching stories about family.

Something had happened here once, but other things had too, and life went on. We have to remind ourselves to remember

The youngest daughter of the Tsai family is born in Taipei on the night that the 228 Massacre* begins. After the initial civilian uprising, the governor-general calls a meeting under the guise of reaching out and establishing peace. Baba, her father, goes to the meeting in good faith and politely expresses his desire for a democratic Taiwan. A few days later Baba is taken from his home, not to heard from again for a decade. When Baba returns home, he is a changed man and unrecognizable to his family. The youngest daughter, our unnamed narrator who was a newborn when he was taken, has a hard time relating to her father, but he takes a special interest in her. She is angry with him when he makes a decision she considers dishonorable, but decades later she too has to choose between what is right and her family's survival.

Thousands of husbands disappeared in those weeks. Sons as young as twelve. Brothers. Friends. What better way to remake society, my mother thought, than to eliminate the teachers and principals, the students, the lawyers and doctors—truly, anybody who had an opinion and a voice? Beyond the river, execution grounds, field after field irrigated with blood, waited to be discovered. Buildings would crush the bones.

This ARC was gifted rather than requested. I have to admit that I wasn't terribly excited about it. The cover and title didn't stand out for me and I have a negative knee-jerk reaction when I see the words love, betrayal and historical fiction in the same paragraph! That was unfair of me because this book was wonderful and I am so grateful that I got the chance to read it. It had me hooked within the first few chapters.

Shawna Yang Ryan's writing is beautiful and poetic. The book felt so deeply personal, that I was surprised when I read the author's bio and it wasn't at least partially a memoir! The setting is richly drawn. I felt like I was actually in Taiwan and could almost feel the steamy humidity coming off the pages. The author is able to explain the historical context without interrupting the story by sounding like a textbook. It isn't necessary to have prior knowledge of Taiwan's history, but I included a short timeline at the end of this review. A general chronology helps me better understand the complexities when I read historical fiction about new-to-me subjects.

"The loss of freedom isn’t a restriction of movement; it’s the unending feeling of being watched.”

Green Island sounds like a pleasant place, but it is where political prisoners were kept during the decades of martial law in Taiwan. There are some violent scenes involving torture. While the story is mostly told from the perspective of the youngest daughter, Ryan occasionally slips into the consciousness of other family members, including the father while he is imprisoned. Green Island isn't always the easiest book to read because of the brutality the characters experience, but I couldn't put it down because of how deeply she made me care for the Tsai family. After the narrator moved to the United States, I longed for Taiwan. I missed the interactions she had with her parents and siblings. The author nailed the complicated relationships between family members. The four Tsai children are so different and each play a different role in the family. We don't spend much time with the oldest brother Dua Hyan, but he becomes one of the most interesting characters. His choices are the most self-serving, but like everyone else he feels his choices are made for the right reasons.

I realized that this was what Mama had meant by love. A shared experience, a shared history, a shared trauma: this is what made us a family. No one else could understand it…I thought of all the moments growing up when I had disliked my family—my resentment of my father, my disgust at my mother, my anger at my siblings. Of all the families in the world, why was I born into this family? I’d thought. As if just dumb fate had brought us together. Now I understood there was something stronger than fate. Choice. It was ugly and quotidian and lacked romance, and that was exactly what gave it its strength.

I loved Baba and the bond he has with his youngest daughter. Baba was a sensible, justice-minded man before he was taken. When he returns, he is hardened and paranoid. The narrator is the only member of the family who has no memory of him and can't compare him to the person he used to be. As a child, she is unable to make sense of her father, but decades later the political unrest of her home country follow her to the USA and she is asked to make sacrifices for her own family's survival. She begins to see reflections of his life in her own journey. "There was absolutely no honor in survival." The book repeatedly asks: "what would you sacrifice for the ones you love?" Some characters will do anything to keep their families together, while others sacrifice anything for their homeland and a better life for future generations.

Wei had told me a gentler era was encroaching upon Taiwan. Brutality belonged to the previous decade. Does brutality ever get old? I wondered. Each generation brings a new group of men who have not yet learned the guilt of the last. They need to feel bones breaking under their very own fingers to know for sure how they feel about it.

The narrator's life mirrors her parents life in big and small ways, illustrating the endless, repetitive march of history, both in a societal sense and within a family. One small moment I remember is the Tsai women pondering a lifetime with their husbands: "That he remained, in some way, unknown made the thought of a lifetime together bearable." (the mother Li Min in 1947) and "Maybe what made the years bearable was to let all those bad feelings slip beneath the surface unacknowledged." (the narrator several decades later). The ending is perfect and it echoes back to prior points of the book, both the narrator's birth in the beginning and her discovery of how little she knows about the events surrounding her birth. As the narrator grows and fills in the gaps of her knowledge, she learns that life isn't simple and neither are the choices that people make. Life moves on and complex lives are simplified for the history books and museums, but the past is never "dead, gone, irrelevant."

I gave my respects to the widow, beaten the night that my motherhood gone into labor with me--neither woman aware of the other or how their fates were tied, however tenuously. Maybe this is what it meant to be a citizen of a place—bonded to each other by the histories thrust upon us.

The setting and the characters are what makes Green Island special. It was terrifying how trouble followed the narrator over the Pacific Ocean. (See: The assassination of Taiwanese writer Henry Liu). This is a book you can read again and again over a lifetime and get something different from it each time. I learned so much from this book, and it has caused me to seek out further information on Taiwan's history and the surrounding conflicts briefly mentioned in the text. I've read enough about war to see that while the objective facts of these conflicts are different, the impact on people is universally similar. All the books I am about to list are all very different, but they share similar themes: All the Light We Cannot See (especially the last chapter), The Buried Giant, The Constellation of Vital Phenomena, And After Many Days, and The Nightingale.

The world does not happen the way we lay it out on paper: one event after another, one word following the next like a trail of ants. The rocks in the field do not preclude the flowing river fifty miles away; a man sneezes and at the exact same time a woman washes her feet, a child trips and blood oozes from the broken skin, a dog nips at a flea on its hindquarter, and a bird swallows a beetle. Past, present, and future too swirl together, distinguishable but not delineated by any sort of grammar beyond the one our hearts impose.

__________________________________________
* What better way to follow that last quote than with a timeline! ;) The BBC has a better version, but for my purposes here is the simplistic timeline of a complex situation:
1927-1949/1950 - Period of Chinese Civil War in the Republic of China (ROC) between the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Communist Party of China (CPC).
1945 - Japan forced to return control of Taiwan to ROC as part of post-World War II settlement.
1947 - The 228 Massacre: Discontent with KMT rule in Taiwan boils over after police violently handle a contraband cigarette vendor and kill an innocent bystander. The citizens riot and and the government declares martial law. Over 10,000 people are killed and even more disappear without a trace.
1949 - KMT government and refugees flee to Taiwan after losing the civil war. The war resulted in two de facto states, the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan and the People's Republic of China (PRC) on the mainland. The White Terror period in Taiwan begins with KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek's reign and continues for almost forty years. Over 140,000 Taiwanese "political dissidents" are imprisoned and thousands are executed.
1971 - UN recognizes PRC as the sole government of China, which a huge blow to the ROC.
1979 - The United States formally recognizes the PRC and severs relations with Taiwan.
1987 - Martial law ends (see 1949). This was the longest period of martial law recorded at the time it was abolished.
1996 - First democratic presidential election in Taiwan.
2000 - 50 Years of KMT rule ends with the election of a Democratic Progressive Party candidate for president.
Present - Taiwan's political status still controversial. PRC claims Taiwan and ROC still claims mainland China. The numbers of those affected listed above are also in contention.

I received this book from the publisher, in exchange for an honest review. This title will be released on February 23, 2016.

[Connie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Green Island" is a family saga and political novel about the Tsai family in Taiwan. Taiwan had been a prosperous Japanese colony before Japan's defeat in World War II. After the war, Taiwan was under the military dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT, the Chinese Nationalist Party). Chiang Kai-shek used Taiwan as a base for the KMT when Mao Zedong's Communist party took over mainland China.

After a brutal incident on February 28, 1947, the fictional Dr Tsai gave a short speech at a community meeting that criticized the government. He was arrested a few days later and disappeared for eleven years, held as a political prisoner by the KMT on Green Island. He returned as a broken man to his family.

The novel is narrated by Dr Tsai's younger daughter. It shows the compromises and betrayals that had to be made to protect the family by both her father and the daughter. The narrator married an activist professor in California and they were under surveillance by the KMT spies in America. The repercussions from her father's imprisonment and the political oppression of the KMT affected the family's lives for decades.

Taiwan's history was fascinating, and I found myself looking online for more details. Taiwan still is not recognized as a separate country by the international community because of its complex relationship with China.

"Green Island" is a well-written novel by a Taiwanese-American author who understands both the Asian and American cultures. Shawna Yang Ryan is a sensual writer who draws the reader in to see, smell, taste, touch, and hear what she is describing. Her characters are flawed people in situations where there often is not a good solution. Their relationships are complex in a patriarchal society where the husband rules the household--but Dr Tsai is a shattered man. "Green Island" is an interesting story about how decisions can haunt a family in a difficult part of Taiwanese history.

[Aditi · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The people have realized that Martial Law is not law. A regime not established by law is devoid of the attribute to dispense law. A regime which puts in a bunker the highest law in the land does not have the moral authority to say that nobody is above the law.”

----Zulfikar Ali Bhutto


Shawna Yang Ryan, an award winning American author, pens her new book, Green Island: A novel , that unfolds the story of a Taiwanese family living in Taipei when the Martial Law was incorporated and changed the future of this family. Told from the perspective from the unnamed narrator who happens to be the youngest daughter in this family, she traverses two decades under this law as well as facing the aftermath of this law by playing so many roles in her life. This is not only her story, it is the story of the people who faced the darkness of this Martial Law.


Synopsis:

A stunning story of love, betrayal, and family, set against the backdrop of a changing Taiwan over the course of the twentieth century.

February 28, 1947: Trapped inside the family home amid an uprising that has rocked Taipei, Dr. Tsai delivers his youngest daughter, the unnamed narrator of Green Island, just after midnight as the city is plunged into martial law. In the following weeks, as the Chinese Nationalists act to crush the opposition, Dr. Tsai becomes one of the many thousands of people dragged away from their families and thrown into prison. His return, after more than a decade, is marked by alienation from his loved ones and paranoia among his community—conflicts that loom over the growing bond he forms with his youngest daughter. Years later, this troubled past follows her to the United States, where, as a mother and a wife, she too is forced to decide between what is right and what might save her family—the same choice she witnessed her father make many years before.

As the novel sweeps across six decades and two continents, the life of the narrator shadows the course of Taiwan’s history from the end of Japanese colonial rule to the decades under martial law and, finally, to Taiwan’s transformation into a democracy. But, above all, Green Island is a lush and lyrical story of a family and a nation grappling with the nuances of complicity and survival, raising the question: how far would you be willing to go for the ones you love?


The nameless narrator was born in the Tsai family on the night of February 28 Massacre, an anti-government uprising in Taiwan.
As per Wikipedia,
Taking its name from the date of the incident, it began on February 27, 1947, and was violently suppressed by the KMT-led Republic of China government, which killed thousands of civilians beginning on February 28. Estimates of the number of deaths vary from 10,000 to 30,000 or more.[1] The massacre marked the beginning of the Kuomintang's White Terror period in Taiwan, in which thousands more inhabitants vanished, died, or were imprisoned. This incident is one of the most important events in Taiwan's modern history, and is a critical impetus for the Taiwanese independence movement.

In 1945, 50 years of Japanese rule of Taiwan ended when Japan lost World War II. In October, the United States, on behalf of the Allied Forces, handed temporary administrative control of Taiwan to the Kuomintang-administered Republic of China (ROC) under General Order No. 1 to handle the surrender of Japanese troops and ruling administration. Local inhabitants became resentful of what they saw as high-handed and frequently corrupt conduct on the part of the KMT authorities, their arbitrary seizure of private property, and their economic mismanagement. The flashpoint came on February 27 in Taipei, when a dispute between a cigarette vendor and an officer of the Office of Monopoly triggered civil disorder and an open rebellion that lasted for days.[2] The uprising was violently put down by the military of the Republic of China and the island was placed under martial law.

The narrator then recounts her story when few days after the uprising, the governor general asked the civilians in Taipei to come out and speak for the injustice, which finally led to the narrator's Baba's arrest as he was apart of that event. The narrator then grew up without knowing her father, but a decade later, her father gets back to their home. He is changed man and was often subjected to being shunned in the public. But later her father makes a terrible decision in order to save his family that finally comes back to haunt the narrator, another decade later, when she is thrown on the path on whether to save her father in Taiwan or to save her new found trustworthy friend in California.

The author's writing style is lyrical and syncs with the deep emotions laid out in to the story line. The narrative is equally evocative and what makes the story even more interesting is that the main character has no name, most probably, she wasn't named after her birth, as soon after her birth, her father got arrested and they had to evacuate their family home in Taipei. The mystery as well as the history is laced beautifully since with the progress of the story, it becomes obvious that something terrible might happen with the narrator a owing to her father's decision's consequences. And that kept me completely glued into the story line despite the fact that the story is too long and the author has incorporated the story with too many intricate details.

This family saga runs parallely with the effects of the Martial Law in post-WWII Taiwan. The background of Taipei is vividly painted into the story line thus giving it depth which will make the readers see the location with their own eyes. I loved how the author drew Taipei's changing as well as fading landscapes with the history. The time period is also quite well arrested by the author, from the food habits to the language to the life style of the civilians to the culture to the hot sultry weather, everything is captured strikingly and also its changes with respect to the time and politics.

The story ponders not only on this youngest daughter's life, but also projects the stories of other family members, their complications and everything. The book, in short, i s not an easy on e to read because at times I felt quite confused with the story line.

The characters are well-developed and their rich orientalism in their demeanor is well captured. The character of the narrator's father goes through a lot of changes and evolves from being an understanding man to a casual one. The mother's character is also nice, but we don't get to see much of her action, except her sacrifices and her loyalty towards her husband even though he is wrong at times. The elder sister is the thoughtful one, who took care for her parents. The main character is the mirror through whom we can see the changes in the political strata as well as in the household and also in her life. I loved the characters that made the story look richer and meaningful .

Overall, this is a captivating historical fiction where history of Taiwan plays a huge role in this family saga, where various relationships and bonds are explored, their weight of strain over the edges, complicacies, reunion, holding onto one another, sacrifices for the homeland as well as for the family.

Verdict: For historical fiction fans, this evocative novel is a must read!

Courtesy: Thanks to the author, Shawna Yang Ryan's publicist, for giving me an opportunity to read and review her novel.

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 5 out of 5]

The writing talent of author Shawna Yang Ryan in 'Green Island', which in conveying the emotional toll of what being born and living in a totalitarian state under martial law requires of families, friends, and marriage, is absolutely tremendous. Ryan should win an award for 'Green Island'. As far as I am concerned, this novel stands side by side with George Orwell's '1984'.

What increased my shock and horror is 'Green Island' is fictionalized history, not simply a literary extrapolation. The experience of reading this book is the same as I imagine it would be if you sat down with your immigrant Jewish grandmother and she finally told you the complete truth of what happened in the extermination camps and how she had survived. Those truths would probably cause you to be aware such survival meant she was left with fractured pieces of her self-respect and naivety, her beliefs and faith wrenched sideways, her self-image destroyed and her feelings of how people were basically good shattered.

Daily life for aboriginal Taiwanese after 1947, when more than two million Nationalist Chinese and their supporters invaded Taiwan to escape the victorious Communists of China, is one of daily tension and fear, watching every word out of your mouth, being careful of every expression on your own face, watching where you visit or with whom you talk. For the next 50 years, all political expression is repressed brutally, and suspicion can divide wife from husband, children from parents, neighbors from neighbors. Anyone can be made to inform through threats to your children and spouse, or because of indescribable torture in prisons. Schools no longer teach actual history; indoctrination is normalized.

If you were a young adult in 1947, your memory years later could get your innocent children killed, so you tell them nothing when they speak of the overlord's garbage information and teachings as fact. Worse, the broken men who somehow survive decades of torture in prison, who survived because they broke, are ashamed when they come home. And you are ashamed that they are your father, brother, son, who were once protestors. The broken ones cannot work. You cannot admire or love them in public if you want to keep your job. Maybe you find their broken state secretly disgusting or forever annoying, and perhaps their PTSD creates nothing but more terror and fear. The broken ones are related to your children, to whom you can explain nothing for fear of what the babes might accidentally say to the wrong people. You can only watch as the children grow to hate this broken angry crazy man, wishing he had died.

The nameless narrator is a young girl when her father comes home after eleven years in prison. Later, she learns all he did was speak his opinion during a meeting. But at this moment, she cannot believe this dirty smelly 'thing' was a Dr. Tsai and her father. It is some time before she understands life has currents both on the surface and far below.

Betrayal of self, family, country, losing face and self-respect was never brought more vividly to me in any novel I have read so far. However, I can speak what I think - this is a fantastic read. I do have some quibbles - the second half of the book is weaker than the first part, for one, but the emotional tone of the book is perfect. For that, I forgive the novel of every fault.

Timeline history of Taiwan:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-16...

[Wilhelmina Jenkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book. I always enjoy books that introduce me to aspects of history with which I am unfamiliar. Growing up in the '50s and '60s, I always thought of Taiwan as a part of China where the enemies of Mao Tse-tung were making a futile stand in order to retake the Chinese government - a completely Cold War viewpoint. I never considered the existence of the indigenous people of Taiwan or their struggle against the oppressive Kuomintang who took over their island, much less their earlier history of colonization by the Japanese. This book shifted my viewpoint.

The author also does a very fine job of examining the cost paid by those who stand up against oppression, as well as the compromises that are made in the attempt to protect oneself and one's loved ones. The book is filled with betrayals of all kinds, but shows just how difficult the choices can be when the characters are faced with ruthless opponents. No one comes out squeaky clean. No one escapes damage. These very human characters are followed through history, from an uprising in 1947 on the night of the protagonist's birth through her immigration to the USA and her trips back to Taiwan to visit her aging parents. The political struggles in Taiwan follow her throughout the book. There are a few bumpy transitions as she moves through time in a nonlinear manner and switches to the viewpoints of other characters, but as a whole, the author does a fine job of telling a complex story that has not been sufficiently explored. I'm very glad that I read this one.

[Monica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up Green Island during a "Best of Goodreads" sale on Amazon. This was in the 1st round pick of the Best Historical Novel for 2016. I've pondered this for several months and I simply don't have the bandwidth to craft the kind of review it deserves, but here it goes. The themes in this one include human frailty, courage, family, mental illness, entitlement, importance of lineage, honor, loyalty, integrity, pride, shame.

Green Island is the story of Taiwan's violent and tumultuous history between 1947 and 2000 through the eyes of a family. The story begins with a pregnant mother of 3 during the last year of Japanese occupation and the takeover by the Nationalists from mainland China on the island ala Chiang Kai Shek. Yes Nationalists as in "Make Taiwan Great Again". The times are turbulent and the father is taken into custody for 10 years.

The disappearances were an island-wide secret. My father was not the only man who had evaporated. It seemed everyone knew someone, and it was simply unspoken: this way we could not count the missing; we would not know for decades that the dead measured in the tens of thousands.

This was an extremely brutal time and the family has no idea whether he is dead or alive. Into this brutal, oppressive environment the unnamed narrator is born and the rest of the tale is through her eyes. Ryan does an excellent job in creating the atmosphere of fear, foreboding, oppressiveness, loneliness, rebelliousness and helplessness through the characterizations. Not knowing whether to mourn or wait for your husband weighs heavy over the years. A very mild flirt of the mother with a shopkeeper leads to further isolation and shame.

He looks up at her. Is he perceptive enough to see that this is more than mere manners? Does he notice the alarm in her gestures? The thought will not leave her head. Desire counterbalanced by shame.

Not knowing her husband's disposition, she will not allow herself to contemplate moving forward.

She must be vigilant against forgetting, she tells herself.

The narrators grows older without her father and only knows that he "went away". She sees a man coming up the road that looks like her uncle but much thinner. As her father reintegrates into the family, he never talks of his time away. He can no longer function in his old occupation and cannot do much manual labor. Slowly but surely the family begins to see the mental and emotional damage that has occurred. The father has become irrational and cannot control his outbursts. The family continues to try to maintain some decorum and dignity in public places.

As my father left the restaurant, my mother kept her eyes on the gold-leafed goddess. She sipped her tea, which was weak and cold. The tendril in her chest had bloomed, full leaves and blossoms, snaking around her heart, choking her throat.

As women often do, the mother begins to find fault with how she had coped with his absence.

All those naive canvases she’d painted of reunited families against idyllic landscapes. She had considered only happy endings.

As the family begins to come to terms with his (Baba) fragile state the narrator sums it up

Baba was like a carefully pieced together eggshell delicately cupped in Mama’s hands. One breath and—glue would be no use, the seams would open anew, and all of us would scramble to gather him up.

Baba is paranoid. As his oldest daughter marries a soldier, he thinks the soldier was sent to spy on him. Years pass and he is called to the city and the government threatens to imprison him again. He lures a dissident back to Taiwan and the man is immediately imprisoned. All of the town knows the father had betrayed his friend. It is a source of shame and shunning for the entire family. No one understands why he did this. It's a disgrace. The friend is released from prison after being tortured and the father is crazed with guilt and shame. He tries to see the man and is kept from it. Finally the man sends him a message.

Su Ming Guo had been away and had just recently returned. He’d sent a letter to my father—no doubt monitored—that said he’d forgiven Baba. It was the worst thing he could have said, doubling Baba’s guilt.

Interesting how saying he forgave Baba was the cruelest response he could have given. I can't imagine that shame would have that sort of impact in America. I'm almost envious of a culture and society that has rules of decorum and standards of honor and where shame has a governing effect on the rules of civility and the behavior of a community.

Fast forward to the 1979. The narrator has married and has two daughters. Her husband Wei Lin, is a professor at Berkeley. He has become an American citizen but is also Taiwanese dissident so it isn't safe for them to return to Taiwan for any length of time. The narrator has become a well-respected writer within those same academic circle. The Taiwan government has their secret service and they are watching the family. Wei has befriended and given aid to a Taiwanese fugitive Jia Bao as a part of an underground movement to fight for Taiwan independence from China. There are some soap opera-ish elements here but the crux of the story is that the narrator is writing Jai Bao's memoir for publication. She has Jai Bao's notes and the Chinese government wants all copies of the notes and the book. They threaten to take her father back into custody back home. She complies (but makes her own copies first) and once they have the book and associated notes in question, they kill Jai Bao. Wei Lin decides the only honorable thing he can do is to take Jai Bao's body back to his wife in Taiwan. The family returns and the daughters meet their grandparents for the first time. Wei is taken into custody and tortured but eventually gets released due to US intervention. Ultimately their marriage suffers under the strain and they divorce.

The first half of the book set in Taiwan felt much stronger than the second. Once the narrator comes to America, the book becomes more predictable and clichéd. There is commentary in the writing that as the narrator and her family become Americanized they become more shallow, materialistic, capricious, entitled. They aren't nearly as concerned about honor and integrity as their parents. They are also not controlled by shame in the same way that the parents were. In fact, the more I think on it, the more I realize that it's not that the first half was stronger, it's that I liked the characters more. Perhaps there is some commentary that the soft, easier, more self-involved life in America eats away little by little the pride, dignity and integrity of our parents and our ancestors.

The book gets its title from the name of the worst prison where the narrator's father was interned.

The book ends with the first time the parents meet. A truly gorgeous conclusion. Even though this is the story through the narrator's eyes, the parents are the true main characters of the book and the most poignant, powerful and moving.

I loved this book and I think it is under appreciated. I'm not one who is normally taken aback by the use of language or turn of a phrase, but I think Shawna Yang Ryan is one of those very rare writers capable of great beauty. This was a powerful story beautifully told. A sonnet to a generation people who suffered for their children and grandchildren to live in a better world. Their stories need to be heard. This was one heck of a debut novel. Highly recommended.

4.5 Stars

Listened to the Audio book but also followed on kindle to collect quotes. Emily Woo did a wonderful job for the audio book.

[Taryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t know nearly enough about Taiwan and its complicated history, which fact swiftly became apparent as I read Green Island. Ryan’s novel covers a sweeping number of years, focusing on the ripple effects within one family of the father’s decade-long imprisonment by Chinese nationalists. His family assumes he is dead, and his youngest daughter, our main character, can’t even remember what her father looked like because she was an infant when he was taken away. Imagine the tectonic shift that occurs when he arrives back home years later, a changed man integrating back into a changed family.

Her father isn’t the only one with political ideals to uphold. The narrator, once grown, and her husband also find themselves drawn into a dangerous web of secret meetings and risky alliances. I wish I had read more non-fiction on this topic before reading Green Island, so I could have felt the weight of the suspense more keenly. The main character is so quiet and reflective, her narration so understated, some of the impact was lost on me. If I’d had a better grasp on the historical foundation beforehand, I might not have wished for someone to come in with a megaphone all like “THIS PART IS SCARY” or “THAT RIGHT THERE IS SUPER SIGNIFICANT.”

Bottom line for me: more research needed.

More book recommendations by me at www.readingwithhippos.com

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Committing to the sorts of reading trajectories that I do, I every so often come across works such as these that attempt to take on the responsibility of representing their entire heritage to know nothing white folks. As can well be imagined, however grammatically correct or wide-reaching the scope, this rarely goes well when it comes to producing a text that will survive for long after the intrepid diversity trackers have dutifully added it to their TBRs and half-heartedly committed to reading it at some ill-defined point in the future. When it comes to this particular piece, this is a book that contains at least four, maybe five works within it, and the fact that they're shoved into a relatively straightforward first person perspective and the relatively small space of 400 pages makes such issues as flattened characters, dissatisfying narrative trajectories, and errant Wikipedia extracts rather inevitable. I don't blame the author for thinking such necessary, seeing as how this is still one of the most solid pieces of legitimate Taiwanese literature on this site five, going on six, years after its publication, but having grown up amidst an Asian diaspora that was largely Taiwanese in representation, I had enough base familiarity with the historical truths of the matter that I would have liked this read had it held my hand less and broke the rules of literary convention more. Following such probably wouldn't have allowed the work to achieve that short term "GRAmazon Choice Award Nominee" status, but it would probably have allowed it to do better five, ten, fifty years from now.

This work starts with a military retaliation in one country and ends with a book publication in another. In between comes one main character and main setting that quickly veers off into another set of the same, side characters that are allowed one brief fleshing out moment before being consigned to barely referenced contextual periphery, domestic suburbanisms that for all its Cold War style conflicts never quite lose their "American" cool, and a historical framework that every so often expands outward to the bigger picture, but never commits to a holistic interweaving between one main life and the many. If this all sounds a bit too much to be achieved even within the scope of the sturdy hardback edition my copy is housed within, it is, leastwise for those who don't read for the sake of picking up history that is acceptably voyeuristic to those who pride themselves on not having a television but help themselves to at least half a dozen streaming services. What this means is that you'll likely leave the work having some newfound awareness of a country known as Taiwan and certain sections of a confabulation of indigenous lands that not too long ago was Mexico and these days calls itself California, but it's the difference between acquiring a friend through a succession of spontaneously deep life connections and networking with them through LinkedIn. For me, the difference between Taiwan and China was something I picked up for the sake of friends in grade school, while the difference between a truly democratic bastion and the USA was something I learned in college, so while I didn't have all the commemorative events or the espionage kill lists somewhere where I could list them off my top of my head, it was more of a filling in the blanks of a larger picture that I was well enough aware of already. As such, what I needed from the work was not a succession of infographics, but something that got into some kind of marrow of things, whether it was a kaleidoscopic experiment in conveying the life of a traitor to the cause, a birds eye view of political Twister that follows the money trail in the face of every kyriarchical history class, or simply a life that didn't constantly ricochet from the most banal of immigration success stories to the most desperate of violent conspiracies and leave little to engage in between. Perhaps the author's saving that for a future work, but that doesn't negate the fact that this would've been a stronger piece if it hadn't given into every temptation to tell and done a great deal more to show.

I'd like to see what else this author has to offer, but I worry that market isn't going to want to take a chance on anything that assumes people not only know about the multifariousness of China in the modern day, but care enough to be able to imbibe quality literature alongside a history lesson. Any kind of writing that avoids such makes for the kind of one hit wonders that swamp the yearly ads of various publishing hegemonies and quickly fade into well intentioned obscurity for the rest of time, and if there's one thing I know about modern literature, it's that that model isn't sustainable if human beings are the priority. So, much as I appreciate being able to do some connecting the dots between the cosmopolitan setting of my youth and the literary landscape, I'm not about to go out of my way to pick up every chunk of fiction that is substantial but not too lengthy, eye catching enough in its book jacket to attract the literary but not too literary type of audience, and ultimately does a lot of selling itself to the momentary mainstream without investing much in the long term future. Long story short, great for the momentary distraction, forgotten within the year, at least, and if that doesn't worry you when it comes to works that are doing their best to push some of the less popular types of representation, there's nothing more I can say.

[Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taiwan, 1947: Two years after Japan had given up control of Taiwan, and the year that the KMT (Kuomintang; Chinese Nationalist Party) fled from China to Taiwan after being overthrown by the Chinese Communist Party. The novel opens with two scenes from February 28: Li Min goes into labor in her husband’s home clinic; and Chinese Nationalist agents beat a cigarette vendor, sparking a riot. These two powerful, desperate scenes immediately draw the reader in and set the tone of the book. 

Green Island follows the lives of one Taiwanese family over six decades and two continents, with historical bullet points of the changing political climate of their country serving more as a parallel narrative than as a backdrop. As the family deals with paranoia, intimidation, political activism, secrets, informants, marriage, infidelity, birth, and death; readers will see Taiwan experience economic growth (while China suffered from its failed Four Pests Campaign in the 1960’s), its removal from the UN (1971), the Kaohsiung Incident (1979), the end of martial law (1987), and the SARS outbreak (2003). 

The story’s narrator (Li Min's daughter) is born the day after the “228 Incident,” just as the “White Terror” (killing, kidnapping, and otherwise violent suppression of anyone seen as being involved with or even sympathizing with the anti-government uprising) began. Her father speaks at an assembly criticizing the government’s violence and within a couple of days is taken away by KMT officers. His wife, presuming him dead after he does not return and the government claims to have no knowledge of his whereabouts, relocates with her four children to her parents’ home in central Taiwan. However, “Baba” miraculously returns eleven years later, although he is a different person, and his “crimes” have not been so “easily” forgotten by the KMT. Indeed, decisions made by her father, brothers, eventual husband, and herself, continue to haunt and threaten the family’s safety and relationships with each other throughout the entire novel. 

Just about every member of the family does at least one thing—in the case of the narrator, multiple!— that I didn’t agree with, but the reader is forced to redefine what constitutes an act of betrayal, loyalty, and love when your home country is under martial law, and purportedly ally countries turn their backs on yours. 

I have lived in Taiwan for over five years now, and I’ve learned a lot about its culture, history, and politics (although I am in no way claiming to be an expert), and it was impressive just how much factual information Yang Ryan was able to cram into 381 pages without distracting from the drama (as mentioned before, the political evolution of Taiwan almost felt like a second, simultaneously developing plot). Even people familiar with these chapters of history in this corner of the world may learn something new (I did!), but others unacquainted will definitely see the ongoing Taiwan Strait tensions in a new, more educated light. Seeing how these different moments in history impacted the narrator’s family (and the island as a whole) was also very compelling, and shows how important family and values are. The characters find themselves in difficult and dangerous situations; readers will have to ask themselves if it is possible to do the wrong thing in order to try and do the right thing, and would they do the same. 

The novel is well-researched, the characters are realistically flawed and motivated, and the themes (patriotism, family, love, loyalty, and identity as defined through the aforementioned) are assertive without feeling rubbed in your face. Despite the suspense and tension throughout, it does move at a slower pace than some readers may prefer. I didn’t mind this, though, as it allowed the characters to really get fleshed out, and enabled me to really get inside the narrator’s head. It did not really make “narrative” sense for there to be parts that she couldn’t have known firsthand (like her birth, or her father's time in prison), but I can forgive this convenience as a momentary step away from  first-person limited in order to give a different perspective and explanation that otherwise would not have been possible. 

In chapter 8, Yang Ryan references a Taiwanese writer, Huang Shih-Hui (黃石輝), and quotes a passage he wrote:

“You are a Taiwanese. The Taiwanese sky hangs over you and your feet tread on Taiwanese ground. What you see are conditions unique to Taiwan and what you hear is news about Taiwan. The time you experience is Taiwanese time and the language you speak is Taiwanese. Therefore, your powerful pen and your colorful painters should also be depicting Taiwan.”

It’s a powerful comment, one that speaks to the pride and identity of Taiwanese people, which is important in a country where exterior forces confuse and dilute that identity. I’m not Taiwanese, but I think it can still serve as a reminder to anyone that we should know, understand, exude, and always remember how the moments, people, and places before us shaped us. Anyway, it’s a really good book, and I found the Huang Shih-Hui passage in its original language:

你是臺灣人，你頭載臺灣天，腳踏臺灣地，眼睛所看的是臺灣的狀況，耳孔所聽見的是臺灣的消息，時間所歷的亦是臺灣的經驗，嘴裡所說的亦是臺灣的語言，所以你的那枝如椽的健筆，生花的彩筆，亦應該去寫臺灣的文學了。

[Sylvia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really wonderful book. She writes of Taiwan, briefly of the island as a Japanese colony, more about the violent takeover of the island by Chiang Kai Shek and is mainland Chinese, and the unspoken of consequences to the Taiwanese people of the US recognition of the People's Republic of China.

This book is particularly poignant to me, because I lived in Taiwan twice - 1971 to 1972 and then in 1979 to 1980. The story of the mainland Chinese takeover of the island was a taboo topic, as was their response to US foreign policy. When I was there it was rumored, no one dared to speak out loud, that thousands of Taiwanese were killed, in fact it was tens of thousands. I had no idea the depth of paranoia and determination of President Chiang and his followers to hang on to power and the extent of their spying and jailing of Taiwanese nationalists. I had only a vague idea that their surveillance reached US shores and intimidated and in a few instances killed US citizens. For me they were whispered stories that I heard snatches of, but didn't dare pursue.

Martial law on Taiwan, ended in 1989, and these stories began to come out. There were survivors, and families o victims. It's shocking to me that much of this had to have happened with the US government's at least awareness and willingness to look the other way. The US presence in Taiwan - military and embassy and then consulate was significant -- thousands. Taiwan was a major place for 'rest and recuperation' from the Viet Nam war. Viet Nam, American fear of communism all must have fed US tolerance of intolerable acts.

I am very glad that Shawna wrote this story. It would otherwise have been a 'lost story'. I was pleased to learn that at a recent book fair in Taiwan. Shawna's book display was prominent and attracted positive attention.

For those, who've never thought of Taiwan, and may never visit. I would still read this book. Shawn tells a gripping story, with well drawn characters. I also really appreciate the ending. Her commentary is honest, without bitterness. It's a very impressive work of fiction. I'm very pleased I had a chance to meet her and hear her read from this book. I've already ordered her first book - Water Ghosts and am looking forward to reading it.

If Shawn visits your town, go hear her read from Green Island, it's worth the effort.

[Book Riot Community]

Shortly after Dr. Tsai delivers his daughter, the unnamed narrator of the novel, he is taken away to prison during an uprising in Taiwan. When he returns to his family ten years later, he is a different man. The narrator's relationship with her broken father will color her relationships and decisions later on in her life, when she is a mother and wife living in the United States. Green Island is a powerful tale of love and survival and the price of freedom.


Tune in to our weekly podcast dedicated to all things new books, All The Books: http://bookriot.com/category/all-the-...

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review soon.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel very conflicted about Green Island by Shawna Yang Ryan. Books about Taiwan, English ones especially, are hard to come by. There just aren't very many books out there about the little country in East Asia I call home. Somewhere during my search, however, I stumbled upon this book, which touches on a dark part of Taiwanese history not many people, including myself, know about. So I thought it will be an interesting way to get to know my homeland through the lens of historical fiction.

And for the most part, Green Island is a good read. Yang Ryan says in the book that she did 14 years-worth of research for this book, since she's not Taiwanese by birth (she's born in California to a Taiwanese mother and a German father). Being a Taiwanese myself, there are little descriptions about Taiwan that only a Taiwanese or, in the case of Yang Ryan, a well-researched writer would know — and they are real delights to read. For example, the pink plastic table covers Taiwanese people use at banquets, the bottles of Apple Sidra at every family gathering, the star-shaped patterns on frosted windows of old homes, etc. These are little things that wouldn't mean anything to foreigners, but I was pleased to recognise them when I read the book. Even as a foreigner, Yang Ryan took the pains to include these authentic details, and I really appreciate that.

I also want to praise the family dynamics Yang Ryan creates in the first-third of the book. The Tsai family does feel like a living, breathing family that I can relate to, from the big sister who has to take care of everybody, to the big brother who's a reflection of the father, as well as the other brother who's also the Black Sheep of the family. I think Yang Ryan does a wonderful job at making the family come alive on the page — which is important, since the first-third of the book is also about how the family has to deal with the return of the father, who's captured, arrested and imprisoned early on in the book. You also see how the protagonist has to acquaint herself with a father figure whom she's never met before.

The second part of this book, which involves the protagonist moving to the US with her husband and settling down, borders on a political thriller, which is also quite surprising. Her husband becomes an activist against the ruling KMT party in Taiwan. However, the party’s agents continue to work undercover overseas as well, and we see a lot of ramifications of the husband’s activism and how it impacts the family. There are also several genuinely suspenseful bits in the second act that’s right up there with the best political thrillers on the market.

And therein lies my problem with this book.

The first act of the book leads you to believe that it is about the family, and how the family members have to help the returning father to get back on his feet again. You are also led to believe that it is about the relationship between the father and daughter, and how they have to rebuild years of lost time, all while the father has to deal with PTSD. And because the family dynamic is so well drawn out on the page, you really start to become invested in the family. You want the father to pull through. That is not to mention the fact that Yang Ryan includes a bombshell that the elder brother, a military servicemen, is a spy in the family!

But when act two begins and the protagonist moves to the US, the book completely forgoes the plot in Act 1. You don’t hear anything from the family, except for random phone calls or letters. Act 2 basically just reads like a domestic thriller that’s shoehorned into this other book about political oppression and its impact on a family. Don’t get me wrong, I quite like Act 2, but it just feels like a complete tonal change from the first part of the book, and just feels really divorced from everything else. And because Act 2 feels so disjointed, it’s hard to feel invested in the characters. You never quite know what the protagonist’s husband is up to in his ‘meetings’, and the subplot with Jia Bao, an escaped activist, also feel a bit tenuous at best. There is a section where they visit a former KMT general in exile, and I was looking forward to reading it. But that section is but a side note, which is a little disappointing.

The real problem comes in Act 3, however, when the story switches all the way back to Taiwan again. After decades being away, the protagonist visits her family in Taiwan, and suddenly we are back in Act 1 territories again. Many of the interesting plots introduced in Act 1 are either dropped or diluted due to the passage of time. I also feel like, because the author spent 14 years researching real-life events over the span of 50 years, she was too eager to include everything she read about. In the final 50 pages of the book, the author introduces Taiwan’s SARS crisis, and how the family gets stuck in a hospital. Aside from tying the narrative to real life events, I really cannot see how it adds to the overall story. It just feels like an ending that’s being dragged out for the sake of historical relevance and accuracy.

There is also a weird section at the front of the book where the protagonist narrates events that happened before her birth — but in first person. This device is never used throughout the rest of the book, which makes me wonder why Yang Ryan decided to do it in the first place. It’s just super odd to have the protagonist narrate events while she’s literally still in her mother’s womb.

As a whole, I am happy to have read a historical fiction book set in Taiwan, and I have learnt more about this dark period in our history. But I think there is a tighter, leaner book buried somewhere in here.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow.

I am so impressed with this author. The author's prose, characters, emotion, moral questioning, and ability to highlight deeper human truths is incredible. On top of all of that, the author delivered a solid dose of 20th century Taiwanese history and made it so critical to the plot that I was completely enthralled the entire time. This book starts with the (incorrectly named) 2-28 massacre in 1947, in which tens of thousands of Taiwanese died or disappeared in a tumultuous time as the KMT came in and asserted power. This book ends in the early 2000s, after you've watched the narrator and her family and friends live their lives shaped by the actions of the KMT.

I previously didn't know anything about the history of the island, other than the fact the KMT was the exiled Chinese party that had relocated to Taiwan. I had no idea how rough their regime was on the people of Taiwan. I'm still not even actually sure whether this book is controversial, or if it's generally accepted that the regime was as abusive as depicted in this story. However, from what little research I've done online, it seems like the author didn't have to exaggerate much, if at all.

The first person perspective of this book made me feel like I was the one living her life-- at least until about halfway through the book when the narrator starts making more independent actions. I loved that she was never named. I loved the compilation of characters, each with their own history and motivations, all influenced by the politics of the day. I loved the themes of love, loyalty, and family that are prevalent throughout.

Several things have struck me upon further reflection, that I'm not sure were weaknesses, although I first interpreted them that way. About halfway through the book, I wasn't sure if there was anything left to say. I thought she had covered a good dose of history and it's implications on a family, and the story could be beautiful and complete at that point. Despite this, the book goes on for another 200 pages after that, with a slight shift in tone and narrative, because the author is now an adult. While I enjoyed the first half of the book more, I still treasured the second half and the lessons I took away from it-- and how a regime can control even American citizens from afar. I also was initially bothered by the numerous characters who I felt like I got close to, but then never got resolution on (this includes characters like her father and her friend Ting Ting. Her father because I felt like we had his internal narrative in the beginning, and then we never broke through his emotional detachment after that; Ting Ting because we got so close to her and then never heard about her again after the characters lives separate.)

It seems like Taiwan is about to become more politically volatile an issue between China and the U.S. in the coming years, and although this book does not cast any light on today's issues directly, it does introduce a reader to how complex the issue really is.

Read this book. Read it for a riveting story. Read it for historical reference. Read it to travel in time and space. Just read it.







~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Quotes that made me think:

"We are curious creatures, we Taiwanese. Orphans. Eventually, orphans must choose their own names and write their own stories. The beauty of orphanhood is the blank slate." (97%)

"...anger is an ember, and the one who holds it is the only one who gets burned." (92%)

"Now I understood there was something stronger than fate. Choice. It was ugly and quotidian and lacked romance, and that was exactly what gave it its strength." (90%)

"Our ideas of love were clearly different; where I saw devotion, she saw duty. I cared how one felt, while to her what one did was what mattered. I wondered if I should pity her. Or perhaps my abstract concept was the more hopeless one." (83%)

"But even if no one believed the lie, they could do nothing but shut up and take it and write thinly veiled poems and make thinly veiled films and write thinly veiled songs. The whole country existed in metaphor." (80%)

"Of course it's you, I had thought each time-- first as I had cradled Emily and then, two years later, Stephanie. You couldn't have been anyone else." (77%) (A mother's love)

"Isn't freedom the ability to conduct our lives in privacy, without every action logged, reported, and punished?" and "The loss of freedom isn't a restriction of movement; it's the unending feeling of being watched." (69%)

"Some argue that 1968-- the year of student protests in France and the United States, Poland and Yugoslovia; the year Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr were shot-- was the moment that the dictionaries were burned and rewritten, but this claim disregards the change that happens day by day, so incremental that it is invisible to us, like a snail sliming its way across a road." (32%)

"When I got older, I still thought I could write life. I didn't understand, as my mother had just realized that evening, that it is the other way around. And yet, here I am, still trying."(23%)

"Past, present, and future too swirl together, distinguishable but not delineated by any sort of grammar beyond the one our hearts impose." (96%)

[Blaine DeSantis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. And before I review it, I wanted to say that I have been on Goodreads for over a decade and never really got into having "friends." This summer my daughter had a college class with Jenny who has the Reading Envy blog and after my daughter raved about her in class I became a Goodreads friend of hers, which begat other friends and thanks to those friendships I saw a lot of interest in this book, Green Island. I was the first person to get it from our library and was captivated from page one. The writing is beautiful. It is not a fast read. No, no. But it is a book you want to slowly devour as the author mixes a family history along with the modern history (since the 1940's) of the island we now call Taiwan.
Written from the perspective of the families youngest daughter it begins the night of her birth which also was a night of a massacre on the island, and ends almost 60 years later. By the way the narrator is never named in the book which to me is unique. We follow her family, and her marriage. We go from Taiwan to Berkley and then back to Taiwan. We see Formosa become Taiwan, we see Taiwan go from a Japanese possession to a Chinese possession and then an outpost for Chiang-Kai Shek who became a key ally of the US. And then Nixon goes to China and no longer is Taiwan favored, and it is now the Republic of China, as opposed to mainland China being the People's Republic of China. You see the turmoil of the island and the people through the eyes of this family, as well as the protests of the dictatorship that Chiang created.
There is a lot of great history here and I learned so much from this book, and we see how the family suffers and endures over the years.
One of the very few books listed as a Best Book of the Year that actually lives up to its reputation.

[Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written, almost generational epic about a woman's life in the shadow of Taiwan's dictatorship ranging from her birth in 1947 when the KMT government had just fled the mainland following the China civil war all the way to 2003 during the SARS epidemic. Shawna Yang Ryan writes poetically about her family's struggles, centering around the haunting of the Green Island prison her father was sent to when she was a child.

Although that's the title, and it haunts the rest of the narrative, very little is said directly about what her father experienced. He was taken away, and one day returned as a broken stranger, and this also representative of Taiwan's character as a whole, considering how the country slowly healed and became a democracy decades after the inciting incidents took place.

One senses that this book must have autobiographical elements, because it is written with so much understanding not just of the political situation but of the inner workings of a person's life growing up in provincial Taichung during the 1950s and 60s. America is also almost a character, as the island fills up with servicemen during the Vietnam War, and the Nixon administration's normalizing relations with the People's Republic of China looms over the 1970s, and even ending in 2003 during the Iraq War is noteworthy.

The Tsai family drama continues as the narrator leaves Taiwan for "free" America and has her own issues raising daughters in middle class California. History repeats when she returns to Taiwan to visit relatives and her husband is also oppressed by the government. But this novel is about the women who are left behind when would-be revolutionaries martyr themselves for a greater cause.

As someone living in Taiwan, this novel didn't quite teach me much I didn't know when it comes to the political sense. It's simply an excellently written novel about human beings living a life throughout the history of this fascinating yet tragic place. Moreover, I'd highly recommend the book to those who aren't as familiar with Taiwan and those who might like to learn more about the island's journey into modernity. It's called Green Island, but it could just as well be called The Island (if the title wasn't taken) due to the grand scope of the setting. But as Joyce said, "in the particular is contained the universal," and haunting of the former prison of Green Island is the perfect reflection of this entire land's spirit....

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Green Island is a book of historical fiction set mostly in Taiwan in which an unnamed narrator recounts her family’s tumultuous history. It begins in 1947 during the violent repression of Taiwanese civilians by Chiang Kai-shek’s Chinese Nationalist government, the Kuomintang (KMT), which had come over from mainland China after losing the Chinese Civil War to the Communist forces. The narrator is born during the (real) February 28th incident in Taipei, when her father is arrested by the KMT for his alleged involvement in “pro-Communist” activities. The storyline spans decades, chronicling the narrator's eventual immigration to the United States, where her professor-husband is taking part remotely in the Taiwanese independence movement. The story weaves together memories of her family in Taiwan and experiences in America, which prove not to be beyond the reach of the KMT.

Ryan employs a fragmented, non-linear narrative structure that moves between the narrator's present-day reflections and vivid flashbacks. The novel explores themes of political oppression, betrayal, and how individuals respond to threats to the security of their families. It portrays how fear and silence become survival mechanisms. I appreciated reading about a less-covered historical period and location. I think it could have ended a bit sooner, as the final few chapters put this family through even more turmoil and trauma. Still, it is well worth reading. It points out the dangers of extremist governments, and the impact on individual freedoms, which of course, remains relevant in today’s world.

[Sarah]

DNF @ 20%

I must reiterate that this isn’t bad by any means, it’s just a bit too heavy for what I want right now. Recommended (based on what I’ve read of the book) for fans of historical fiction and 20th century East Asian history.

[Ming · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is intriguing in terms of the topic and the historical period it represents. However, the writing is riddled with serious quirks (and this cannot only be a matter of style).

The awkward sentences and use of language are jarring. Here are a few lines, among many, that left me scratching my head about what was meant and how to re-write these sentences to be both more clear and more evocative. Ok, just more clear would have been sufficient.

1. "Baba didn't have to punch or pound. The steel in his bones entered his words."
2. "My memory was a line of punctuation and no continuous prose."
3. "The drive to the lake had taken so much time that we felt compelled to sit there together even when many painful silent minutes had passed and I became too aware of the quiet to even sniff."
4. "Flirtation was awkward on me--my words and gestures came out stilted--and annoyance showed too easily on my face."

The various shifts in time and perspective were also disconcerting. I'm not sure if it was the lack of transitions or a certain tone. Lastly, it was quite clear that the author was on a soap box. While this is understandable, I felt that it was too heavy-handed in the book. For instance, to make a point, Ryan inserts a paragraph from a statement that asserts that Taiwan is a part of China. The various stances about ROC vs. PRC and Nationalists vs. indigenous Taiwanese could have been portrayed in a more nuanced way such that these perspectives clearly belonged to the characters and why.

As a reader, I had to work to get through the word usage and phrasing, the changes in perspectives and time periods, and the chest-pounding.

I think a better editing process could have smoothed out or eliminated many of the elements that distracted. irked or confused me.

[K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trigger warnings: torture, murder, stillbirth.

3.5 stars.

I'd heard this billed as a family saga, but really it covers the story of Taiwan during the course of one woman's life, from 1947 to 2003. It's a compelling story, particularly once the protagonist moves to the US and she's dealing with her husband's involvement in Taiwanese politics and its impact on her life.

What I wasn't so keen on here was the omnipresent narrator. When you've got a first person narrative of events that happened when the narrator was a baby and was also like a hundred kilometres away? Yeah, not so much.

Still, it's really well written, and it's very informative in regards to Taiwan's turbulent history.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, I just love when a book educates you on a time in history that you have been completely unaware of. Ryan pulls off a magnificent literary feat by tackling six decades set in Taiwan over the course of the twentieth century. It is horrific what so many endured during this time and begins with the story of the unnamed narrator's father being captured because he is suspected of Communist activities. He is kept for over a decade in brutal and inhumane conditions. It then follows his return home, the unkindness of others, the stress of feeling watched, and the other generations that continue to struggle through the decades with their own issues. It's far too much to go into in a quick review, but you will learn a lot along the way!

Things I would note with this one. First, I wish I would have educated myself a bit before diving into it. I knew nothing about the Chinese nationalists or the history of Taiwan and the author offers no real introduction into the history of that, assuming the reader can follow along. After a browse through Wikipedia, I was able to understand better, but it was a confusing time in politics and reading that first would have helped me through the book.

Secondly, the book does drag in parts, but the good parts in this far outweigh the slow parts. Power through and I hope this time in history is as eye-opening for you as it was me. She is a masterful storyteller and I'm glad I read this!

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

To call Green Island a devastating tale of idealism versus oppression might be true, but it would also be an oversimplification of this family saga spanning decades and continents. A harrowing journey through history, memory, rebellion, betrayal and forgiveness (or was it acquiescence?), the novel is more than anything a reminder of the multitudes who suffer unredeemed beneath the boot heel of repressive regimes. Also...a beautiful love story.

[Jaclynn (JackieReadsAlot) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars - I have lived in Taiwan for ten years and this book taught me a few things. I cried on the bus on the way home tonight when I got to the final ten or so pages. A harrowing journey through history, memory, rebellion, betrayal and forgiveness (or was it acquiescence?), the novel is more than anything a reminder of the multitudes who suffer unredeemed beneath the boot heel of repressive regimes. I'd like to know more about the author...is she from Taiwan or Hawai'i? I am originally from Hawai'i and had no idea that the author was a professor of creative writing at our state university. I love that connection!

[anchi · Rating 5 out of 5]

先說結論，我很喜歡這本書

出版於2016年的《綠島》，故事主要以1947年3月1日出生的女主角第一人稱書寫，將二二八事件後到2003年SARS爆發之間，台灣社會發生的大小事寫入故事中。主角的父親蔡醫師在二二八事件後不久便被消失了，直到十年後他才又出現在家裡，但他的歸來卻帶來更大的謎團，因為他變得與過去不一樣了。

除了白色恐怖，書裡也藉著不同角色來寫其他歷史事件，像是70年代大量出現的駐台美軍、棒球狂熱、以及趁著假期回台相親的在美台人，不過，書中最重要的議題是民主與自由的追求。《綠島》一書除了以台北與台中兩地作為故事舞台，女主角更在1972年跟隨剛認識不久的丈夫移居美國，故事也隨著聚焦在海外台人的各種挑戰，不僅是在政治與社會層面，故事後半也著重於主角自己的家庭關係。

《綠島》一書因為開頭的二二八事件便讀來沉重，但看著主角「我」歷經父親失蹤與歸來、與丈夫的相親與相處，到後來與自己的深入認識與和解，這本書有種魔力想讓人繼續讀下去。書名為綠島卻幾乎沒有細寫綠島，身為台灣讀者，書裡的各種小細節很加分，尤其譯者的功力很好，讓中文讀者會誤以為不是翻譯小說。

好啦，內容可能有點沉重，但我真的很喜歡也很推薦這本書

[Chanda Prescod-weinstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is a tremendous contribution to American literature. Yang Ryan deftly manages the conflicting and complicated narratives of good and evil, good and bad that are foisted upon the colonized by colonizers. She captures the way it divides families and even individuals inside of themselves. For me it was personally an important read as the wife of a Taiwanese American whose family is mirrored in many ways in the story. It helped me to see in many ways why my husband and I, a Black and Jewish American, had connected in ways that we never really articulated. It also helped me to see the grief that he has inherited while giving me a clearer overview of historical events that I knew about but maybe couldn't have put carefully into chronological order. It inspired me to write about Taiwan in our relationship, something I hope to publish elsewhere.

I hope everyone will read this book, for both style and substance. It is not an easy read, but it is very much worth it.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me miss Taiwan so much. It spans decades of Taiwanese history, from colonialism through martial law and finally democracy. Readers can get a sense of how real families might have experienced these times. Sometimes the tangents about history didn't fit with the family drama narrative, and there were also times that the first person narration of events the narrator wasn't actually present for....this interrupted the flow of reading a bit. But in general I really enjoyed this book and it put a lot of historical events into a larger context for me.

[Carrie Hsieh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unrelentingly brutal and sad. This book covers an extremely eventful 56 years of the history of Taiwan (1947–2003), and it does struggle under the ambition of that huge project. Seeing that this is one of like two novels that exist about this period of Taiwanese history, I can understand the weight of that pressure. Yang Ryan wants not only to educate about what happened in Taiwan under the Chinese Nationalist party’s totalitarian regime and the decades of murder, disappearances, imprisonment, torture, and surveillance that occurred under martial law, but, more importantly, to also humanize these facts: as the main character says, “It was more than a story.” But with all this book takes on, there were lots of really emotionally complex character moments, relationships, and feelings that I wish could have been explored more deeply.

But I was along for the ride! And I felt the heaviness of the horrors, one after the other after the other. It’s a very powerful book at times—under violently oppressive rule and a fearful society, the choices the characters can afford to make are so constrained and tainted, and each one ripples out to even more unintended, tragic consequences.

I’m glad this book exists! I’m also appreciative of how it helps me understand the context of and imagine better my own family history: like Baba, my grandpa was tortured and imprisoned during this period, and like the main character, my parents moved to the U.S. and learned about the human rights abuses in Taiwan there, having grown up under Chinese propaganda. I keep remembering: on a recent visit to Tainan, my mom turned to me and casually said, pointing to the street, “My friend’s dad was murdered there by the police.”

[april ☔ · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 - 5

there is just something about diasporic multigenerational historical fictions that have me in an absolute chokehold, so GREEN ISLAND was no exception. this story follows a taiwanese family from 1947-2003, through the white terror, taiwan’s tenuous political status on the international stage, through births, marriages, moves, loss, imprisonment, torture, and death, and the persistance of a family and of the island through it all.

i loved parsing through shawna yang ryan’s prose—it’s the kind of writing you can savor. reading this novel feels visceral. she captures emotions and the mundane in such an essential way.

the novel’s beginning is my favorite because i think ryan excels at subtext. the family’s experiences surrounding baba’s imprisonment are so painfully captured around his stark absence, all the things left unsaid. it’s this negative space that allows the reader to imagine all the feelings and tension which fill the air in between, and that emotionality colors all the relationships between the characters throughout the rest of the novel.

the subsequent acts, once the narrator is in her early adulthood, lose some of that primordial, most basic but most substantive emotion. the complexity is of course a natural and not negative development, but here i think ryan has less of the same precise control over her pacing and focus. i feel like this is just a byproduct of the genre though, as historical fiction spanning such long periods of time tend to meet this pitfall. it wasn’t enough to detract any enjoyment or awe of the story.

i think this is a story not easily forgotten. and yes, it did make me cry. multiple times.

for anyone who enjoyed THE LOVE SONGS OF W.E.B. DU BOIS, PACHINKO, THE MOUNTAINS SING, etc., or looking for a more historical take on some of the dynamics explored in the Poppy War trilogy or the Green Bone Saga.

[Ava Mattis · Rating 5 out of 5]

devastatingly sad, at times sickening, and very bleak, especially since so much is based on real events. there is little hope or redemption in this book, even with gained independence, especially as that so-recent independence continues to be threatened and weaponized.

that being said, it did make me want to return to Taiwan IMMEDIATELY. feel really lucky for our visit with Tina and now being able to recognize city names/envision the setting that Yang Ryan writes so beautifully

purchased at Kuo’s Astral Bookshop in Datong District

“when I got older, I still thought I could write life. I didn’t understand, as my mother had just realized that evening, that it is the other way around. and yet here I am, still trying.”

“what was recognition? she thought. she had recognized his face the day he arrived, but she could not say she knew this man who moved without sense.”

“of all the families in the world, why was I born to this family? I’d thought. as if just dumb fate has brought us together. now I understood there was something stronger than fate. choice. it was ugly and quotidian and lacked romance, and that was exactly what gave it its strength.”

“she quotes Du Fu: ‘the country is broken, but the mountains and rivers remain.’
‘we are the mountains and the rivers,’ he says, impressed. ‘no matter what the country is called.’”

[Lynda · Rating 5 out of 5]

First, I want to say, I just so happened to finish The Generalissimo's Son: Chiang Ching-Kuo and the Revolutions in China and Taiwan by Jay Taylor before reading 'Green Island', and I am thankful I read those books in that order (for my own edification at least). Even though I grew up in Taiwan during my formative years I did not really understand what was going on in the late seventies/early eighties as far as politics. Looking back, it was too taboo to bring up those kinds of topics, plus what would a parent do in telling their growing child about the dark events of the preceding decades leading up to the abolition of martial law in 1987 anyhow?

My own ignorance as an innocent child/teenager back then was also abetted by the total silence (or paranoia) of so many folks around me. I was brought back to my memory of coming across completely blackened-out sections about Communist China (it was not hard to guess the content based on the information that preceded and followed it) in an English-language encyclopedia that I had bought in Taiwan in the early eighties. I had seen censorship first-hand for the first time. My eyes glazed over in wonder.

The novel ‘Green Island’ starts in the year 1947, the year The White Terror began; the Japanese were kicked out; the locals were harshly treated (understatement); and the fight to take back China was in full swing. The story does an excellent job in creating the paranoia and fear of those subject to or living during the atrocities of The White Terror. It describes in enough detail some of the tactics that the KMT regime deployed towards their victims (which some readers might find a little hard to stomach, but the story would just not be the same and lose its point).

Midway, the novel (as with Jay Taylor's book) mentions a couple of high-profile murders, one of a CMU professor, Chen Wen-Cheng, and another of a journalist, Henry Liu, in 1981 and 1984 respectively (the former took place in Taipei while he was visiting family and he was already a permanent resident of the US; the latter took place in Daly City and Henry was a US citizen). These men voiced dissenting opinions about the dictatorial regime of Taiwan. They were just two (out of many, many) examples of murder that underscored the ferocity of The White Terror with the reach of the KMT intelligence services (who also worked with the Bamboo Gang, Taiwan’s triad society) stretching all the way to America let alone having decimated so many lives and families on the island of Taiwan. All committed in the name of rooting out subversive elements that threatened the regime of Chiang-Kai-Shek and later his son, Chiang-Ching-Kuo (who was, according to Jay Taylor’s book, apparently not aware of those two very high-profile crimes [amongst many others] and that his own intelligence services apparatus had morphed into a ‘Frankenstein’).

Reading the non-fiction book beforehand thus greatly helped me to better appreciate and understand the events happening in the novel: why the characters behaved the way they did, how the victims were ‘rooted out’, and appreciate that the level of paranoia and panic in society was palpable and justifiable. The atmosphere was eerie at best and the novel brings that atmosphere to life. The author of ‘Green Island’ spent fourteen years to work on the book and I commend her skill in fiction writing and for telling a moving story set against the backdrop of the decades that martial law was in effect in Taiwan.

Other poignant events later on in the story take place against the backdrop of the 2003 SARS crisis, which was yet another stressful event, particularly in Taiwan which was the third hardest hit behind China and Hong Kong in terms of SARS fatalities.

My favorite character in ‘Green Island’ is Baba, the main character’s father. He is flawed and vulnerable. And perhaps stoic. That is all I can say here since I do not want my review to contain spoilers. Baba’s portrayal felt very real and vivid to me. At times I could not stand him. Other times, I felt real sympathy for him. His character is complex, nuanced, and so human. At times I cried throughout the novel and it would often be tied to Baba. In fact, many characters in the novel elicited my empathy and sympathy, including the heroine and her mother as well.

Several other aspects of the novel such as the Confucian way of how family members treat one another, the ‘arranged marriages’ that young people usually went through (it was a common practice back then), and the heroine moving to America to start a new life and experience culture shock with the resulting cultural identity crisis, were all described very well and things I could relate well to (apart from the arranged marriage, that is, although my dad/step-mom tried to do the same for me in my early twenties, in vain).

Overall, I could not put this book down. There was much forward momentum in the story. I was drawn into the characters right away. I also came away feeling a little sad being far away from Taiwan and familiar faces at the moment in this pandemic. But I am very glad to have read this story and one I hope more readers will take the time to read as well.