Swimming Back to Trout River

by Linda Rui Feng

A “beautifully written, poignant exploration of family, art, culture, immigration…and love” (Jean Kwok, author of Searching for Sylvie Lee and Girl in Translation) set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution that follows a father’s quest to reunite his family before his precocious daughter’s momentous birthday, which Garth Greenwell calls “one of the most beautiful debuts I’ve read in years.”How many times in life can we start over without losing ourselves? In the summer of 1986, in a small Chinese village, ten-year-old Junie receives a momentous letter from her parents, who had left for America years her father promises to return home and collect her by her twelfth birthday. But Junie’s growing determination to stay put in the idyllic countryside with her beloved grandparents threatens to derail her family’s shared future. Junie doesn’t know that her parents, Momo and Cassia, are newly estranged from one another in their adopted country, each holding close private tragedies and histories from the tumultuous years of their youth during China’s Cultural Revolution. While Momo grapples anew with his deferred musical ambitions and dreams for Junie’s future in America, Cassia finally begins to wrestle with a shocking act of brutality from years ago. For Momo to fulfill his promise, he must make one last desperate attempt to reunite all three family members before Junie’s birthday—even if it means bringing painful family secrets to light. Swimming Back to Trout River is a “symphony of a novel” (BookPage) that weaves together the stories of Junie, Momo, Cassia, and Dawn—a talented violinist from Momo’s past—while depicting their heartbreak and resilience, tenderly revealing the hope, compromises, and abiding ingenuity that make up the lives of immigrants. Feng’s debut is “filled with tragedy yet touched with life-affirming passion” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), and “Feng weaves a plot both surprising and inevitable, with not a word to spare” (Booklist, starred review).

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, China, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Asia, Historical

272 pages, Paperback

First published May 11, 2021

About the author

Linda Rui Feng's debut novel, Swimming Back to Trout River, traces the far-flung orbits of a family across two continents, and explores the themes of music and migration in the aftermath of one of China’s most tumultuous eras in the twentieth century. The novel was a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and has also been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, and the Aspen Words Literary Prize.

She teaches at the University of Toronto, where her research in Chinese cultural history often takes her to long-forgotten books from the ninth century and, more recently, the history of smell, scent and aromatics.

Reviews

[Will Byrnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Junie rested her hiccuping head against Grandpa’s bony back as he pedaled on the bumpy road, wobbling and clanking. Across the thin fabric of his sweat-soaked shirt and against Junie’s cheek, his ribs rose and fell with his breathing. She recognized that moment as the beginning and the end of something—though she was too young to say exactly what that something was. But she knew, without really knowing she did, that the gossamer threads we put out into the world turned into filaments, and filaments into tendrils, and that what people called destiny was really the outward contours of billions of these tendrils, as they exerted their tug on each of us.

Swimming Back to Trout River is a story of connection and separation, of love and loss, of yearning and disappointment, of growing, striving, succeeding and failing. It is a story of enduring the worst of times, surviving an unquiet heart and a world in upheaval. We follow several characters as they cope with lives severely impacted by their experiences coming of age in China during the Cultural Revolution, a traumatic period that left as many as twenty million dead, and ruined millions more lives and careers.


Linda Rui Feng - image from her site

Dawn was introduced to music early, when her grandfather received a piano from a Russian conductor, (a long-term loan) before Sino-Soviet relations soured. She wanted to be of use in the world, but her heart sought a different form of creativity.

Her most vivid childhood memories were about music, and although they commanded attention, in the end they led nowhere. She remembered crouching on the floor under the piano as her grandfather played it above her. She was five, it was the year before her parents died…In her mind, she wasn’t just under the piano; it was more like she was wearing it as a cloak. Its vibrations enveloped her, echoed in her chest, and emanated down to her toes, claiming her, and she hugged her knees tight just to keep herself in place.

There are further steps forward in her musical journey but when she is accepted to university, it is her intention to be an architect, do something practical, build things for the country. However, a chance to be in a school orchestra rekindles her musical flame.

It is while she is at university that she becomes friends with Momo. He is smitten with her and is more than happy to have her teach him how to play the violin. But he is practical, an engineering student, seeing the world through the lens of math and physics. While they do not fully connect, there is a connection, a seed planted, and despite his eagerness to be a good party man, Momo continues to feel the need for music in him. Of course, the Red Guard was not happy with people having a love of music outside the sanctioned state product, at a time when enjoying any other music was considered very un-woke, and did their best to destroy alternate perspectives.

After college, Momo is working as an engineer at a factory in northeast China when he meets Cassia, who is working as a dental assistant. A year later they are married. It is not long before they have a child, Junie, an otherwise healthy girl who is born with truncated lower limbs.

We follow Momo from tales of his childhood in the 1940s and 50s, through university, from his fealty to the Party Line and belief in science to the exclusion of all else into a broader view of the world. We see his interest in music from his introduction by Dawn to his fanboy appreciation of a young virtuoso, long after and far away. We watch his affections, from his connection to Dawn through his love of Cassia to his love for his daughter, and growth as a parent. The story takes us into the mid-1980s, when Junie will turn twelve.

We only get to see Junie as a child, being raised by her grandparents, not an unusual situation in 1980s China, managing her physical challenge, a curious, bright girl. It is one of the few disappointments of the book that we do not get more time with her, as she appears primarily at the beginning and a bit near the end of the story. She is a vibrant presence who deserved more pages. It is she who offers the most direct consideration of our attachment to place.

Junie scooted over toward him on her knees, reached into the well-worn tub where his feet were planted, and poked at the gnarled sinews and bones in them.
“Your legs grew roots, Grandpa,” Junie said, “like those trees by the river!”
He looked at her, then down at his own feet.
“Do you think my legs will grow roots like yours, when I’m older?”

She also offers motivation for Momo, trying to weave his family back together again, and is a source of considerable emotional conflict for Cassia. In a way, it is the ties to Junie, direct or otherwise, that impel the other main characters to want to swim back to Trout River.

Both of Junie’s parents pursue opportunities in the United States, Cassia working in San Francisco, Momo pursuing a doctorate somewhere in the middle of the country. Momo writes home to tell Junie that he plans for them to all be together for her 12th birthday, in a year and half. But he does not tell her that he and Cassia have become estranged. So, a high bar.

In addition to the moving stories of the main characters, there is much thematic content in this book. Feng offers a notion of connectivity that morphs into something larger. The filaments, the tendrils of the passage quoted at the top of this review form a mat of destiny. There are plenty more, some a bit dark:

…because of what happened to her the previous year in Beijing, Cassia understood that what set human events in motion were the most ethereal of tendrils, a kind of machinery no less powerful for its lack of discernible shape.
--------------------------------------
He had assumed that even when the weight was at its heaviest, there had been a rope that tethered them to each other, such that pulling was possible.
--------------------------------------
How did an umbilical cord turn into a noose?

There is much on water as well, serving diverse needs, including as a connecting, unifying medium.

“I don’t want to go anywhere,” she mumbled between spasms of breath. “I want to stay here with you and Grandma, even when you are old, forever and ever—”
Grandpa started to shake his head when he heard the word “forever,” but he saw Junie’s fever-red cheeks and stopped himself.
“If you send me away, I’ll turn,” she told him.
Grandpa stared at her.
“I’ll turn into a fish and swim back here,” she said, pointing to the direction of the river, “from America!”
“From the river?”
“I’ll learn to swim for a long way,” Junie said. She’d seen America on a map, and it was across an expanse of textured blue. But what was an ocean, after all, but a bigger body of water? And didn’t adults say that all rivers drained into the sea?

Cassia reacts to the Bay area climate as a source of comfort, maybe a way to stay hidden.

To Cassia the fog had an inviting, tactile quality. Being in its midst must be like being embraced by the most benign form of water, because you could be immersed in it without drowning.

In the Pen America interview Feng says:

Though I didn’t always grow up near bodies of water, in my writing I find myself drawn to rivers and coasts, probably because they gesture toward circulation and connectivity, and yet also have unique moods when observed on the time scale of days, years, decades, and even centuries.

In an interview with LitHub, asked to summarize her book, Feng replied, How to improvise a life. The fluidity of where we call home. The resilience of the imagination. How the titanic forces of history precipitate in smaller, more recessive lives. She offers a vibrant look at what it means to be a Chinese immigrant in the USA, whether in an above-board visa-holding status, or as a defector, a student, or a menial laborer.

What I hope to show with characters like Momo is that the experience of emigration, however hopeful, involves a kind of sundering, a giving up of people and things that otherwise sustain them. And because much of what they give up—the fabric of an extended family, rootedness to a place, an honest narrative of one’s own past—are wholly invisible, they often find it hard to articulate the shapes of these more wayward forms of grief. - from the Pen America interview

Gripes are few for this one. More screen time for Junie is the largest. There is a twist near the end that I thought was unnecessary. Those who have read the book will know what I am referring to.

This is a beautiful, lyrical novel. There is a richness of language here that will reward patient, gently-paced reading. It will surprise no one, given the artistry of language and the power of imagery in the novel, that Linda Rui Feng is, in addition to being a novelist, a published poet. She is a writer of short fiction as well. A cultural historian, teaching undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Toronto, she offers a look at personal ways in which the Cultural Revolution impacts her characters. In Swimming Back to Trout River, Feng has given us characters who have been shaped by the tumultuous era in which they came of age. They struggle with issues of love, of career, of terrible loss, grief, and of a desire for roots while being uprooted. Their stories are moving, and the trials to which some of them have been subjected are enraging. Thankfully, you will not have to paddle upstream to give this one a look. Swimming Back to Trout River is a dip worth taking.

…this morning, while driving the last stretch of road with a storm gathering, I thought: Is it possible that grief too is like music? Maybe once grief begins, you cannot simply cut it off. Rather you have to let it run its course the way an aria comes to its last note. You cannot stop grief in its tracks any more than you can cut off the aria at just any point you deem convenient.
And maybe, like someone said, love is a wound that closes and opens, all our lives.

Review first posted – May 14, 2021

Publication dates
----------Hardcover – May 11, 2021
----------Trade paperback - May 17, 2022

I received an e-galley from Simon & Schuster via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

=============================EXTRA STUFF

The author’s personal and GR pages

Interviews
-----Pen America - The PEN Ten: An Interview with Linda Rui Feng by Viviane Eng – definitely check this one out
-----Literary Hub - Lit Hub Asks: 5 Authors, 7 Questions, No Wrong Answers

Items of Interest
-----A list of Feng’s publications
-----Wiki on China’s Cultural Revolution

Songs/Music
----- André Rieu plays Shostakovich - Gadfly Violin Concerto
-----Maria Callasa singing Puccini - O mio babbino caro
-----USSR Symphony Orchestra – conducted byt Yevgeny Svetlanov - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade: The Sea and Sinbad's Ship [Part 1/4]

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve never read a book that dealt with the Chinese Cultural Revolution, so this book was an easy pick. The story centers around one family - MoMo, the father, Cassia, the mother and young Junie. When the story begins, the family is separated, with Junie living with her grandparents. But MoMo promises her the family will be reunited in time for her 12th birthday.
The book wasn’t just about the Cultural Revolution, which was more of a starting point. Instead, the book focuses more on how that time affected the characters.
The book is told from multiple points of view. Not just Junie’s, Cassia’s and MoMo’s, but also Dawn, who was a university friend of MoMo’s and instilled in him a love of music.
The writing is lyrical. I had a real sense of the people, places and events that were portrayed. The story encompasses family, belonging, music, grief and the ability to move forward. I loved how Feng dealt with everyone’s individual losses but also showed moments of joy and beauty. The ending totally blew me away.
My thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an advance copy of this book.

[Bkwmlee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I actually finished this book a few days ago but held off on writing the review because I needed some time to gather myself after such an emotional reading experience. Linda Rui Feng’s debut novel Swimming Back to Trout River is poignant, powerful, and beautifully written — a touching story about endurance in the face of repeated tragedy, about resilience and hope, about love and family and the complexity of human relationships, about loss and grief and regret, about history and culture and how what happens in the past can continue to haunt the present as well as the future.

As the story opens, we meet 5 year old Junie, who is sitting on her mother Cassia’s lap as they travel by bus to Junie’s grandparents’ house in the little village of Trout River in China. Cassia is about to leave for America to join her husband Momo, with the intention for Junie to join them in a few years’ time. Meanwhile though, Junie will be left in the care of Momo’s parents in the little village where Momo himself grew up alongside his two brothers. Junie adjusts wonderfully to life at Trout River and grows to love the idyllic countryside as well as the grandparents who raise her — which is why, when she is 10 years old and receives a letter from her father in which he promises to return by her twelfth birthday to bring her to America for a reunion, Junie’s immediate reaction is that of impending doom. Precocious by nature, Junie is determined to stay put and never leave her beloved grandparents’ side — at one point, she tells her grandfather that if she were forced to leave, she would find a way to return back to them, even if she has to swim from America back to Trout River to do so. What Junie doesn’t know is that her parents, living thousands of miles away in their adopted country, are estranged and struggling to deal with lingering feelings of grief and loss from past tragedies. Intertwined with their story is that of Dawn, a former classmate of Momo’s who is also a talented violinist — having lost her parents at a young age, Dawn was raised by her grandfather, who helped cultivate a musical sensibility within her. The narrative alternates between the perspectives of these 4 characters whose destinies end up intersecting in ways both familiar and unexpected.

This was such a sad and heart wrenching story, yet also hopeful and tender in its depiction of the characters’ struggles and endurance. From the moment I was introduced to Junie on the very first page, I was absolutely smitten with her, to the point that I continue to hold her dear to my heart even now, days after having finished this book. I loved Junie’s closeness with her grandparents — a sentiment that of course wasn’t surprising since she was raised by them (this is actually an all-too-familiar situation for many Chinese children who are often left behind in the care of grandparents or relatives in their home countries while the parents try to get situated in another country, with most only reuniting with their children after they feel they’ve built a stable enough future for them) — having said that, a part of me still felt a little sad at Junie’s lack of familiarity with her parents. My favorite scene in the novel (which occurred fairly early in the story) was also the most heartbreaking one — where Junie tells her Grandpa that she will swim back to Trout River to be with him and Grandma — I had tears streaming down my face when I read that scene (I don’t want to spoil the story so I’m not going to explain further, but those who’ve read the book and met Junie in its pages will probably understand why this scene had such an impact).

This is one of those books that actually requires discussion, as there is so much here thematically, it’s impossible to cover everything in such a brief review. A few of the themes that stood out were those pertaining to water as well as music. The one that stood out to me the most though was the idea of “motion” or “movement” — from Junie’s “other means of locomotion” to the various ways that the characters “move” through the story, whether physically or figuratively. I had read somewhere that the author, Linda Rui Feng, also writes poetry, which explains the lyrical and metaphorical nature of the writing, as well as all the imagery rendered so beautifully throughout the story.

Even though only about a third of the story takes place in the United States (the setting for majority of the story is China), this was also an immigrant story at its heart, albeit a very different one from what we may be used to seeing. In terms of China’s cultural and historical elements — from the hardships of the Cultural Revolution period to the insights into the concept of family and filial piety embedded in Chinese culture, etc. — all of it was incorporated so seamlessly and flawlessly into the story…which I guess should come as no surprise given the fact that Feng is a scholar and teacher of Chinese history and culture.

I loved nearly everything about this book: the realistic yet endearing characters, the gentle and reflective nature of the story, the nuanced exploration of family and human relationships, the subtle way that so many different themes were woven into the narrative — the Chinese concepts of yuanfen and zhaohua (I love the way Feng explained both of these in the story — remarkable given how difficult it is to translate either concept into English accurately and correctly), the idea of inevitability versus coincidence, fate and destiny, and whether it’s possible to change the trajectory of your life even with the most sincere of efforts.

With all that said, my biggest complaint with the story is that we didn’t get to see much of Junie (most of the story was about her parents and the evolution of their relationship) — disappointing not only because I loved Junie so much as a character, but also because of the crucial role she played as the character who tied the entire story together (without her presence, the story definitely would not have been as powerful).

As I mentioned earlier, this was an emotional read for me, and I definitely recommend it, though with the caveat that the metaphorical language might take some effort to parse, especially since there is a philosophical aspect to the language as well (for me, it was well worth the effort). The story is also the quiet, slow-burn type where there really isn’t much of a plot, for one, and two, there’s very little “action” to speak of — this is a absolutely a character-driven story with a strong sense of place (two elements I love in books) that, in my opinion, is almost guaranteed to move the reader in some way. I recommend reading this one with a box of tissues handy, especially for the scenes at Trout River with Junie and her grandparents. I do hope that Linda Rui Feng writes another novel — when she does, I know I will absolutely want to read it!

Received ARC from Simon & Schuster via Edelweiss.

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) · Rating 3 out of 5]

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3 ½ stars

“After all, wasn't it true that to love someone is to figure out how to tell yourself their story?”

With understated lyricism, Feng charts the experiences of a family divided by physical and emotional borders that are nevertheless united in their pursuit of a more 'promising' future, for themselves and each other. The narrative intertwines the trajectories of various characters: Momo and Cassia, a married couple whose relocation to America results in their estrangement, their daughter Junie, born with a congenital amputation, who is in China and being raised in a small village in the countryside by her beloved grandparents, and Dawn, a talented violinist who knew Momo in their college days. Moving from the 1960s to the 1980s, from Communist China to San Francisco, Feng spins a tale of grief and resilience. Throughout their adulthood Momo, Cassia, and Dawn experience loss, heartbreak, and time and again are forced to reconcile their own personal desires with the ones of others.

“The incandescent cocoon of music was pure rapture, and it said to him; Stay. It was a powerful beckoning, to be held in thrall, to be consumed, annihilated even.”

Classical music plays a crucial role in Dawn and Momo's narratives and Feng beautifully articulates their relationship to it. When writing about music Feng's writing acquires an almost luminous quality, one that—if you excuse my unintentional pun—is assured to strike a chord with her readers. I particularly liked the discussions surrounding the way other countries tend to stereotype musicians from East Asian countries (conflating attributes they associate with those countries—'conformity', 'rigidity'—with the music they produce).

“We learn so much more about things when they are broken or unmade, he thought.”

There is a particular episode early on in the narrative when something happens to a violin and well, I was almost in tears. In spite of these moments of tension and of Feng's candid portrayal of the Red Guards, the narrative retains a quiet atmosphere, one that is pervaded by a sense of longing.

“He was impatient for time to pass, so that in his life, there would be less yearning and more having, less becoming and more being.”

While Feng's writing is indisputably beautiful (I have dozens of highlights that will attest as much) I did find myself at a remove from her characters. That is not to say that I failed to sympathise with them. Their interactions—especially the ones between Junie and her grandad—could certainly be affecting. However, there was a veil between me and the characters that I was unable to penetrate. While this 'distance' did bring to mind the work Jhumpa Lahiri (a favourite of mine), here the slightness of the novel (just over 200 pages) meant that years of their lives would be condensed in a few pages, giving me little time to adapt to their new environments and circumstances. At times their personalities were too inscrutable so that I found myself confusing characters (especially the secondary ones that prop up in the America section of the novel). I also wanted more of Junie. She is very much sidelined for much of the narrative and I would have loved to read more about her childhood.

“In order for Junie to exist, two people had to come together during the Cultural Revolution under circumstances that one of them would later describe as inevitable, and the other, as coincidental.”

Feng's exquisite prose and her meditation on art, culture, love, grief, exceptionalism, and dislocation result in a poignant and thought-provoking read. If you are a fan of authors such as Lahiri you should definitely not pass this up.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has been one of the more absorbing books I have read recently. In a story that spans from the 1960s to the later 1980s and moves from China under Mao to the American prairie, this novel gives views of lives that are so foreign to my experience but feel so important to know.

Momo and Cassia meet during the time of the Cultural Revolution, when merely being together essentially marks betrothal. And that is their wish. Both have had earlier experiences which are only slowly revealed. The speaking or not speaking of life’s events and feelings will be a major issue throughout this story, as individuals deal with the effects of things left unsaid. Momo and Cassia have a child, Junie, and she becomes the focus for the future.

But China changes, opens to the world, and exchange programs begin, sending Momo alone to America when Junie is very young. The novel then plays out, moving around in time as we learn more of the earlier lives of Momo and Cassia, the immigrant experience to America, the connections to the world of the arts and more. Human connections, and disconnects, are everywhere here.

There are occasional Chinese terms used and defined to explain a character’s belief or action. Subtle and not so subtle differences from Western thoughts or philosophy. These are introduced in ways to help define a character in a wonderful mid-book section.

Highly recommended for those who would like a contemplative novel.

A copy of this book was provided by Simon & Schuster through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

[Lata · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful writing is at the heart of this story of a family. The family is not together when we first meet them; young Junie lives with her grandparents at Trout River, Momo is in the US at a university, while Cassia is in Beijing, and seems somewhat disengaged with her life.
We also meet Dawn, who was involved with Momo before he met Cassia.
The events of the Cultural Revolution have a deep impact on their lives, sending them in different directions over the years, and it’s music, played on a violin, that connects them all together.
The author takes us through the lives of these four people, showing us they dealt with loss. I was left with a sense of loneliness and longing, heartbreak and joy by the end of this affecting book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for this ARC.

[Stacey B · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was referred to me as having a "similar thread" to a book I loved "The Secret Piano..." Thank you for the referral Jodi!
It is only my second book about Mao/Revolution, but for some reason I was drawn to both based on music for some reason Im not sure of.
Bittersweet and tender, you will love this book.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book was an experience; throughout the story, I was drawn in by the struggles and minor tragedies of the interconnected characters. Tragic is a key word for this book, I think. It touches upon tragedies both large and small, both historical and personal. Although I wouldn't say that it is uplifting, it is certainly beautifully written and compelling, set against a dramatic historical backdrop. I loved the elements of Chinese culture that were introduced throughout the book, and the way that culture sometimes came into conflict with itself during the time of the Cultural Revolution.

Had things gone a little differently with the execution of this book, I think I would have rated it five stars. It may deserve five stars, as my minor issues may in fact be things that other people loved. Nevertheless, I think that the allocation of time between characters was sometimes strange. I enjoyed learning about Momo, Cassia, and Dawn, but the book starts and ends with Junie. The start made me think that Junie was going to be the core of the story, and that we would get to see her throughout the process of growing up. As it turned out, she primarily served as a bookend, and her mentions throughout the story served primarily to illustrate what she represented to her parents. This was disappointing to me; especially when they began to touch upon her love for swimming, I would have loved to see more of her story. Perhaps an opportunity for a sequel?

My other issue was the matter of the tragedies. It was not a happy book, nor did I expect it to be, but occasionally the nature of the tragedies that befell the characters felt a little over-the-top, as if to make you remember that this was not a happy book. One thing that I felt this way about was the death of Cassia's first love. I'm not objecting to it happening, but the fact that it was bloody, visceral, and right in front of her...it just seemed excessive to me.

More to the point, I was disappointed in how the book ends with Momo and Cassia dying together in a car wreck. I can see that in some ways they had resolved their unfinished business with each other and their stillborn child, but I would have preferred to see that as something that freed them to move forward with their respective lives, rather than abruptly and unceremoniously ending them. I can understand why the author made that choice, and some readers may like it, but I would have found the book much more meaningful and enjoyable if there had been some level of hope for a new beginning for those characters, since they were the main two characters that we followed throughout the book. There is perhaps some hope for Dawn and for Junie, but we didn't really get to see as much of either of them as I would have liked.

I enjoyed this book, but I am not sure how much I actually liked any of the characters. They were complex, interesting, and relatable more than actually likeable, and that's ok. However, I do think there were several things that were touched upon that I thought were going to be explored that then were not, which was a little disappointing. For example, Junie's grandfather creating her prosthetic legs, Junie learning to swim in Trout River, Dawn's journey from defector to famous composer in the US, what happened to Iron Monkey as a result of Dawn's defection, among others.

Still, I think I'm being critical of these elements because the book was very striking, and really touched me emotionally. I thought it was really excellent, and could have perhaps just been slightly more satisfying. But again, I'm not sure if leaving the reader satisfied and settled was the author's intention. I think that fans of family and character-focused historical fiction (like Pachinko), especially those with an interest in Chinese history, would definitely enjoy this book.

*I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley. Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher!*

[Jerrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok story, but I found the prose a bit formal and sluggish.

[Bonnie G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this as a buddy read with Briana, so hopefully she is not reading this since I read way ahead of where we are supposed to be!

The first time I was in China was December 1984-February 1985. Mao had died just 8 years before and with him, thankfully, went the Cultural Revolution. This is not like when the Wicked Witch of the West dies and instantaneously the monkeys and the munchkins start a block party. The physical devastation of the Cultural Revolution took years to repair and the emotional devastation is still present. In 1984 starvation and struggle sessions were barely in the rear view mirror and mixing with things Western was still looked at with a jaundiced eye. My then boyfriend (who speaks flawless Mandarin) and I (who then spoke extremely flawed Mandarin and now speaks essentially no Mandarin) got lucky when we met people who shared their harrowing experiences during those years. Most had lost at least one immediate family member to starvation and all had endured years of insufficient nutrition (one had never eaten anything but rice and grass picked in fields her whole life until she was a teenager), many had lost loved ones to suicide in the wake of Struggle Sessions, all had been separated from extended family and had lived in constant fear. Sadly one family in Dali who shared their stories and their lives with us for weeks got a threatening visit from the the Public Security Bureau telling them not to talk to us (they must have gotten turned in by a neighbor.) Luckily another neighbor told us what had happened. We left rather than get them into more trouble -- they acted like nothing had happened and would have continued to offer us hospitality. This experience when I was in my early 20's left me obsessed with the Cultural Revolution and its immediate aftermath. For years not much was written. I think before this the only fiction I had read about the period was short story collection from the mid-70's, The Execution of Mayor Yin. I am pleased to say that Swimming Back to Trout River turned out to be, for me, a wonderful way to see the way in which the horrors of the Cultural Revolution impacted the lives of six people. This is a very human story, it does not focus on many specific events related to the CR, but communicated the overall effect of being watched by spies all the time and living with the terror that you could be the next person humiliated, tortured, relocated away from family, or even murdered.

At the center of this story is Junie, she is the daughter of Momo and Cassia, born without legs below the knee and left in the care of her paternal grandparents when her parents head to America. Insulated by her loving grandparents Junie has a happy childhood until she comes to see the world a little more clearly with age. (The sixth person covered is Dawn, a person in Momo's life before Cassia. One thing about the Cultural Revolution is that is severely limited people's options, and it paired or pried apart people who if left to fate would have never connected or would have been together forever. This is true of Momo and Dawn, Momo and Cassia, Junie and her parents and then her grandparents, and later Cassia and the people she connects with in San Francisco. These relationships are all fostered or destroyed by the external force of the Chinese State which eliminates both meaningful choice and kismet. Junie notes there is a word for this in Chinese, but when you try to translate it to English you just come up with "fate" when in fact this is the opposite of fate. It is a cool passage, and I should note that there is a focus here on the effect of language on life. The thought is that if a language does not have a word or phrase for something people can't experience it -- without language to represent it a thing does not exist. All very metaphysical and, for me, a really interesting thought path to go down.

These characters all have compelling stories, but while I enjoyed the characters I was somewhat more interested in their relationship to the State and the complications of living in that time and place and the impact of geography and language on perception. The combination of creating a portrait of a past time as one expects from historical fiction and of also writing a character based story in the fashion of literary fiction is, though not unheard of, quite uncommon. Most commercial historical fiction plays pretty fast and loose with historical fact. (See eg, Philippa Gregory, Lauren Wilig, and books like Gone with the Wind and Shogun.) Literary historical fiction is expected to hew closer to the facts, and perhaps that is why it is so rare. It takes a lot of research, but also it is hard to write a compelling character arc that is still historically accurate. I think Linda Rui Feng. did that, so kudos! I do think she pared this down too much (I usually love pared down, but this paring took too much from the story being pared.) The book leaves a lot of things uncovered, as it should, but for me I needed to know more about Momo as an adult, the choices he made, his life in Council Bluffs. I also wanted to know more about Cassia and her choices. I found her very confusing and still do not fully understand why she came to America. Her character becomes much clearer in the last 20 pages or so of the book, but I still think there should have been more and earlier coverage of her choices and drivers.

All in all an interesting read set during a fascinating time. I am here for more by this author, and more by other novelists who set their stories during the Cultural Revolution.

[Davida Chazan · Rating 5 out of 5]

When a debut novel blows you away like this one, you just want to shout it from the rooftops! Come see my review on my blog here. https://tcl-bookreviews.com/2021/05/1...

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really had no idea what I was getting into reading this book, but I was utterly fascinated with it! Possibly it's because I traveled to China when I was in college with Semester at Sea, and we learned a lot about the Cultural Revolution. But I had forgotten how so much of it mirrors political trends everywhere; and also we weren't there long enough to really get to know anyone and hear their stories. So I was swept away by the intertwined stories of Momo, Cassia, Junie, and Dawn. It's such a beautiful debut ,and I was entranced by the characters' pasts, their futures, and especially their resilience in the face of disaster. I wept a bit in the scenes with the violin; and even though I'm not musical at all, the author brought those sensations to the page beautifully! What a lovely debut! I look forward to reading me from Linda Rui Feng in the future!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

[Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Swimming Back to Trout River is a fascinating book – interesting story shifting among several characters, considering China's Cultural Revolution, cultural differences, and the immigrant perspective.

Linda Rui Feng's description of relatively privileged immigrants to the US (i.e., graduate school, conductor and composer, nanny) was an interesting one. They often felt confused by US customs, language, and choices. "The immigrant must be like an improviser of music. He must take a template alien to him and, while bound by rules, turn it into something of his own" (p. 236). Even those people who were open to them, were only partially open, wanting to add unneeded soy sauce to dishes, for example.

Rui Feng's Chinese characters saw the world through their cultural frames of the world (e.g., yuanfen), acknowledging the "unknowability in the workings of the universe, … [the] invisible mesh that loosely bound people and circumstances" (p. 155). US characters saw them through an individualistic lens: "She had been given credit—by the press, by her peers—for having seized her destiny, when it had been an accumulation of favorable accidents" (p. 233).

Although I think I am a good reader, I felt like I missed the deeper metaphors in Rui Feng's story. Sometimes, she gathered up her story's images to note that they had not been just random choices: "You know that I washed up on these shores like a BEACHED WHALE, and all of you”—she gestured with her arms – "helped me grow my FIRST PAIR OF FEET, and then helped me learn to stand on them" (p. 230). "We learn so much more about things when they are BROKEN or UNMADE, he thought." (p. 195, capitalizations added to identify images). In the first case, the speaker had not experienced the events she included as metaphors.

Is Rui Feng, then, simply talking about working through personal and cultural traumas or, as I sometimes thought, was Junie, who was born without feet, a metaphor for China during and after the Cultural Revolution or her parents' growth or the tension between coming to the US or staying there? The last of the these three fits best with the book's title and focus on migration (and moving). Junie is a cheerful and engaging presence, so I'm glad that she was a touchstone throughout this book.

In an interview, Rui Feng said:

I had been thinking intermittently about this idea of roots and wanting to stay put in the place that we grew up or feel most at home. I started thinking about the tension between that pursuit of motion, what I would call an escaped velocity, versus that equally powerful urge to stay put. Of course, it’s complicated, the “roots versus rainbow” conundrum—the thing over the rainbow, the many things that draw you away from where you are from, versus what brings you back or allows you to dig in your heels and fight for the place that you are most familiar with. (Braitman, 2021, par. 3)

I read this with my mother's book club. I am often frustrated by their book choices; this is a book that makes me want to continue reading and attending their meetings.

[Peter Tillman]

Here's the author's essay on how her college geology professor's taking her class on a field trip to remote interior Ontario led her, by twists and turns, to writing her first novel. Which is not quite science-fiction but is perhaps best classed as Lab-Lit, fiction about science.
https://lithub.com/from-exobiology-an...
Excerpt:
"During the summer field trip with Dick, the most memorable thing he showed me was a sedimentary rock type called a dropstone. The specimen we saw was light colored with delicately and rhythmically spaced horizontal layers, nearly perfect, except at one spot, a small pointy stone is poised against the layers and makes a dent in the fine parallel pattern. What I learned of its chronology was something that I took with me from early adulthood to my thirties and now into my forties, as I try, still, to figure out what it is I write from: Year after year, a fine layer of clay is deposited at the bottom of a quiet lake or shallow sea, adding imperceptible thickness to the bed."

[Booknblues · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm just going to say it up front, I loved this book! I found Rui's writing beautiful, loved and was invested the characters and admired the way she put the story together.

As the book begins we are in China and Cassia is dropping off her young daughter Junie to her grandparents who live in Trout River (the English name). Junie's father, Momo is the United States and Cassia needs to work. We learn that Junie is handicapped by a birth defect in which she doesn't have full legs.

The book shifts between four main characters and also goes back and forth in time. This is done in a way that works for story development and never feels abrupt. The chronological start of the book is 1961, shortly before the Cultural Revolution which shaped or misshaped all of the adult characters.

The story takes place from the years 1961 to 1986, from China to America. We see the compelling reasons for immigration during that time, but we also see compelling reasons for remaining in place.

In many ways this is a heart rending story but a deeply meaningful one. I will be thinking about it for a long time.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

“but you and I both know that I’m just a streetlamp ̶ on your road of life headed to god-knows-where.”
I cannot describe the way this book made me feel.

[Phyllis | Mocha Drop · Rating 4 out of 5]

Swimming Back to Trout River is a beautifully penned novel that spans two continents and explores aspects of humanity and the spirit of survival in the face of adversity and loss. We follow Momo, a young man from rural China, whose academic gifts propel him to university at the cusp of the Cultural Revolution. There he meets Dawn, a talented violinist who shares her musical talents and mutual attraction with Momo before their fondness of Classical music is deemed counter-revolutionary and her violin is destroyed as contraband under Mao's tyrannical regime. A difference in philosophical and political views causes a rift in their friendship and the proletariat's work assignments ruin any chance of reconciliation. Momo marries Cassia, a spiritual woman, who harbors lifelong secrets and births Junie, a special needs daughter who is the joy of Moma's world.

Without revealing too much, Dawn, Momo, and Cassia eventually arrive in the United States and discover a kind of freedom that inspires a sense of purpose and peace that has eluded each of them for decades. The dreams and desires which were unrealized and unattainable in China appear to be tangible and actionable -- and their decisions to pursue them ignite life-changing results.

The novel explores not only Chinese culture, but the complicated and loving aspects of their interrelationships and family bonds. The writing is strong, the setting is vividly drawn, the characters are full-bodied - seemingly kind, good people who have endured so much that one can not help but empathize, sympathize, hope, and celebrate with them throughout their lives. Well done!

******************************************************************************************
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Publishing for allowing me access to this book.

This book review will be posted on NetGalley, NCBC’s blog, and Goodreads.

[Nursebookie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so beautiful - the writing so exquisite I read this slow savoring every page.

As I read about the the stories of each of the characters, I felt I was being slowly immersed into their lives in the backdrop of a Chinese village and 20th century tumultuous China during Mao’s rule, and then the difficulties of being an immigrant in San Francisco.

This was so hard to put down. I enjoyed every moment of this family saga story. ⁣

[Joy D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Momo is born in the village of Trout River in rural China. He meets violinist Dawn at university, and she introduces him to classical music. After graduation, they are sent to work in different parts of the country and lose contact. Momo marries Cassia, a nurse, and they have a daughter, Junie, who is born without limbs below the knee. Momo attends graduate school in America and plans to bring Cassia and Junie to join him. Dawn also ends up in America.

Teenage Junie has been reared by her grandparents in Trout River does not want to leave. Cassia envisions a different future for herself. Momo, Dawn, and Cassia feel the impact of China’s Cultural Revolution. Dawn is denied the ability to become a professional violinist due to the crackdown on Western music. Momo and Cassia witness the purges, and each must sacrifice a dream due to their society’s transformation.

The storyline follows these four characters’ lives. The plot is thin. I do not think the couple’s story flowed very well, and their daughter seemed the most interesting but was shuffled to the side early on. Themes include healing from trauma and finding new beginnings. I liked it, but I have read other books about the Cultural Revolution that I enjoyed more.

[Fernanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

We follow the story of Junie, her parents, and everybody that impacted their lives in one way or another in China and eventually in the US from the 60s until the 80s, going through the Cultural Revolution in China. Through the eyes of Momo and Dawn we follow how the music and art was affected and the ramifications in their lives. Through the eyes of Cassie, we see how a life can be forever altered through the doings of others. These aspects of the book, I loved. The way the author paints these stories and makes us feel everything is really something. There is a scene in particular that involves Junie's grandpa when he's building something special for her that I really loved.
However, there was a shift in the story when a certain character goes to the US and I felt completely disconnected from the book from this point on. Specially because I really disliked a lot of the decisions from this point and the direction the author took, specially by the end; I felt the author went for an emotional ending and I just wasn't engaged enough by then.

Thank you Netgalley, author, and publisher for the ARC.

[Jasmine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This beautifully written novel is set during the time of the Cultural Revolution in China. It follows a family that must deal with the harsh effects that the revolution had on them. It opens with Cassia bringing her young daughter, Junie to live with her grandparents in the countryside. Meanwhile Junie’s father, Momo, has already moved to the US to pursue graduate school and wishes to eventually have the rest of his family join him. However, Cassia develops other plans and Junie comes to resist this idea as she has developed a close relationship with her grandparents.

This novel deals with themes of grief, hope, resilience, as well as discussions on disability and accessibility. Junie was born without the lower portions of her legs and has to find ingenious ways of navigating her environment with the aid of her grandfather.

Overall, I enjoyed this book immensely. It’s definitely a slow burn, but by the end I felt for all of the characters.

Thanks to NetGalley, Simon & Schuster, and the author for a digital review copy of this book!

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

An unexpected, wonderful read. I liked all of the characters, and the story was different from anything I’ve read, it was a refreshing change. I do have to say it left me wanting MORE about the characters, maybe just a little more depth, but obviously not so much that I gave it less than a five.

And after one of the best discussions we have had, the notion of “flow” and “movement” stands out in a much more defined way. Really cool how those elements connect throughout the story…

[Laura • lauralovestoread · Rating 4 out of 5]

Swimming Back to Trout River is a lyrical debut with so much heart. I love this family saga, as each character tells their vivid story of life in China during the Cultural Revolution and sweeps through to the summer of 1986, with the theme of survival in the face of adversity.

*many thanks to the publisher for the gifted copy.

[Mimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Told from multiple points of view, Swimming Back to Trout River is a poignant novel set in both China and later in the US that tells of the lives of Junie, Momo, Cassia, and Dawn. It is a very emotional, touching story that portrays family and how different family members deal with the challenges that life presents. From longing and secrets to loss and grief, Swimming Back to Trout River describes Momo and Cassia’s different responses to loss and grief and their ability/inability to move onward in the aftermath of loss. Dawn’s story is tangentially related and she plays a significant part in the end. Junie’s story is surprisingly one of joy and delight, made possible by her loving grandparents. She is the ray of light in counterpoint to the sadness and tragedy of much of this story. This is not an uplifting story, but it is one that is deeply moving and will leave you thinking of these characters and imagining more about lives.

I did not expect the story to end the way it did. Momo and Cassia were finally able to be frank with each other and share their feelings about their individual and joint pasts:

they felt, ironically, more at ease with each other and with themselves; the weight of their shared history, unable to find its place in this setting, simply melted away.

Their unexpected deaths in a car crash brought the story to an end without allowing them to decide their future with or without each other and/or with Junia. I would have liked to find out more about their choices. Nevertheless, it is a remarkable debut novel. I would definitely seek out future books by Ms. Feng.

As an aside, after reading this novel, take a look at the tangram on the cover. It is an ingenious pictoral encapsulation of the key elements of the story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an advance ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Rena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even after finishing this book, I can't sort out how I feel about it.

Personally, the first 150 pages were not the most interesting to me, but, for some reason, I was quite intrigued by the last 100 pages of this book.

The author's writing is incredibly poetic, and I did really like how all the characters and events were connected in an inexplicable way that even the characters didn't know about. However, in the same way that the story is poetic, it also doesn't make a lot of sense? Like, there's a loose connection between everyone and everything, but the story had no moral and no message it was trying to send.

The events that occurred were abrupt, and it felt as though the author would throw things at you that would normally be a huge thing in any other novel, but she would present it in such a way that it didn't seem that important, and the story would just go on. The entire novel just consists of a bunch of anecdotes and scenes that eventually build up to nothing and contribute nothing to the plot of the story.

I feel like another reason I'm so confused by this book is because none of the characters actually care about each other at all, and, as a reader, I didn't grow an attachment to any characters either. It almost felt as though the characters themselves had no substance, but it's shielded by quirky physical traits or things that have happened to them.

Anyway, as we can see, I have very mixed feelings about this book. I do think it's very poetic, in terms of both the language used and the way the author writes (and the way the story develops), but I'm just not sure what the purpose of the book is.

[Sarah-Hope · Rating 5 out of 5]

Linda Rui Feng's Swimming Back to Trout River is an absolute wonder of a book. It's not really a "happy" novel, but it nonetheless manages to be hopeful. The novel follows the lives of several young people growing up in socialist China during the cultural revolution and the life of the daughter of two of them. None of the characters face the worst excesses of the cultural revolution, but all are challenged and changed by it. Each travels a complex path determining their own commitment to themselves, to their nation, and to one another.

Music weaves it way through this novel—the community of musicians shattered by the cultural revolution, the exceptional musical talent of some, the pure pleasure music brings to others.

Experiencing the development of these characters as they move into the future and simultaneously getting to know them better as we learn more about their pasts is—a privilege? a gift? a blessing? Crossing oceans and cultures with them is a journey for which readers can be thankful. What we encounter is a demonstration of the diversity and strength of human identity.

Put Swimming Back to Trout River on your read-it-now list. It will broaden your world and leave you with a balance of somberness and hope that are much more powerful than any "happy" ending could provide.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via EdelweissPlus; the opinions are my own.

[Jennifer S · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm clearly in the minority here, not loving this book. Feng writes a fictional family with parents Momo and Cassie who grow up during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, marry and have a child Junie who is born missing her legs below the knee. At the start of the book, Cassie is leaving Junie with Momo's parents, Momo is off at school in the US, and the family is perhaps going to be reunited in the US eventually. Then we travel back and forth in time to hear Cassie's story, Momo's story, some of Junie's limited childhood perspective, and another character Dawn who is a frustrated violinist and connects briefly with Momo before he meets/marries Cassie.

Some of the writing is wonderful and I stopped at times to re-read a sentence or a paragraph. But overall, I found the story to be slow moving and I wasn't really engaged with the characters.

[Kristen Lawrance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a beautifully written story about the Chinese Cultural Revolution, family, music, and the unexplainable connections between people. The writing in this book is so poetic and there were so, so many moments that were deeply moving. Loved it!

[Sopan Deb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful prose to bring to life nuanced characters, and a stark reminder of what the generation before us left behind to build a life in America.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really beautiful book that brought me comfort during these past few weeks when anti-Asian sentiment is high. This is a wonderful novel that evokes compassion for immigrants and their experiences, and families and their struggles. It makes readers question, "what is home?" and follows the characters through their understandings of this question.

The novel and chapters are written from the perspectives of four characters: Momo, Cassia, Dawn, and Junie. Momo and Cassia are a young married couple in China who later emigrate to the U.S. Dawn is the university friend of Momo who ignited his love for classical music. While they never stayed in touch, Dawn also moves to the U.S. and becomes a famous music composer. Junie is Momo and Cassia's daughter who is left in China to be cared for by her grandparents until her parents are able to bring her to the U.S.

There were a lot of elements of this book that I loved as they were introduced but I think fell short in some ways. For the relatively short length of the book, I think it told a number of stories about each character that hovered near each other but never quite touched. The plot felt more centered on the adults than Junie so I felt that her perspective was lacking where I wanted more. Junie is a disabled young girl who is left to be raised her grandparents at a young age and promised to be reunited with her parents in America by the age of 12. The emotions of her parents surrounding her disability are mentioned, but her feelings are rarely talked about aside from her hesitation to move to America.
I really loved Feng's writing style and I thought her descriptions of music were beautiful, especially the explanations of Chinese words that cannot be translated in English. I also think she captured the culture of harbouring feelings that is common in Chinese and Asian cultures and families really well.