Lost in the Long March

by Michael X. Wang

From a rising literary star, an epic historical novel, set against the tense backdrop of the Long March and Mao’s rise to power, that tells a powerful and moving story of two ordinary peopleChina, 1934: A naive orphan and shy gunsmith, Ping, has fallen in love with Yong, who is a sophisticated veteran, a skilled marksman, and a true believer in Marxist ideology. Winning her affections will take an ideological battle—something he does not understand. To make matters worse, Yong has shown interest in Ping’s best friend, Luo. On the eve of a great Communist defeat, Ping sabotages Luo’s rifle, causing the bullet to backfire into his friend’s head. The army begins its year-long retreat, known as The Long March, and Yong turns to Ping for comfort and companionship. Ping deeply regrets killing his friend, and as his relationship with Yong blossoms, he is saddened that it will always be colored by guilt. 
        
Yong soon becomes pregnant. She hates the way the baby inside is changing her, both physically and emotionally. The Red Army can’t retreat with a crying infant, so they need to find someone close to take the baby in. Ping and Yong leave their son with a woman, promising to return once the war is won. When World War II breaks out and Japanese soldiers arrive, their 12-year-old son decides to enlist in the Japanese army to find his parents, though he quickly begins to fear for his life . . .
   
Deeply moving and brilliantly written, Michael X. Wang's Lost in the Long March is an exploration of how the history of a country is always its people, though their stories are often the first to be lost.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, China, Historical, Asian Literature, Audiobook, Politics

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 2022

About the author

Michael X. Wang was born in Fenyang, a coal-mining city in China's mountainous Shanxi Province. He immigrated to the United States when he was six, and holds a PhD in Literature from Florida State University and an MFA in Fiction from Purdue. His story collection, Further News of Defeat, won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize and the Great Lakes Colleges Association's New Writer Award. It was also a finalist for the CLMP Firecracker Award. His debut novel, Lost in the Long March, comes out November 1st from The Overlook Press. He is currently at work on two novel projects.

Reviews

[jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

ughhh. parts 1-4 are near perfection. the history of the long march is interesting, the characters are quite likeable, the story isnt meant to be funny but the humour is top notch, and the writing is just very readable. its all soooo good.

but then part 5 comes along and it lets me down. im personally not a fan of open endings, so the story just doesnt have a satisfying or complete ending to me.

but all in all, a very enjoyable book from near start to finish. i think you want a different perspective on the communists vs nationalists conflict of the chinese civil war, with a little bit of WWII and cultural revolution thrown into the mix, then this is the book for you!

↠ 4 stars

[JoAnn · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love multigenerational historical novels, the kind that invoke profound and simultaneous sensations of sadness, regret, and compassion or which bring to light uncomfortable truths about ourselves, our objects of love, our innermost desires, then Lost in the Long March is for you.

At first pass, Lost in the Long March did not grip me; the first few chapters were interesting, but did not give a clue to the deeper nuances that would come later. I am glad I persevered and read on; I was rewarded. By the last page I was very nearly in tears. There is deep heart-wrenching pain in this novel, the kind that is brought on by very common, mundane processes, in this case, the heartbreak of being a parent, the heart ache for the love of one's child.

Wang's novel is about the banal horrors of war; not the violence of combat, but the long arm of suffering that extends beyond the battlefield, long after the skirmish is over, when the victor is fooled by the passing of time into believing that they have won. They have not. Lost in the Long March revolves around the conflicts of the Chinese Civil War between the Kuomintang and the Communists (the Long March occurred in 1934-1935) and the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945); but this is really a novel about compassion and humanity and the ways in which wars and political movements can destroy them or create situations for their manifestation. Friendship, love, connection, loyalty -- the interconnections between people -- this is the core of this novel.

It is Wang's unwavering focus on this universal core of the human experience which makes the novel so powerful, so moving, so profound. Wang's prose delivers the message with perfect pacing and with ease; the prose is succinct, but the words and the silences Wang leaves between them could cut open a vein with deadly accuracy. On occasion, it took this reader a moment or two to feel the new wound, so sharply and subtly were the words and their meaning delivered. By the time I reached the end of the novel, as Wang came to the story's inevitable end, I was unsure if I could survive it. I will not give the ending away, but I will say that it did leave this reader in a state of metaphorical exsanguination.

Lost in the Long March is well-worth the grief. As with many good books, it is the heavy sense of loss they inflict which is the reader's gain.

[Kathleen Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a terrific read this is! Ping and Luo, both orphans, left their gang and joined up with Mao's forces, where they met Haiwu and Yong- and this is their story as well as the story of Ping and Yong's son Little Turnip who was lost during the Long March. Ping, a gun smith, befriends Haiwu, who loses his leg in an early battle but remains with the troops thanks to a prosthetic made of dolphin bone (who knew). He falls for Yong, an ace shot who is bereft after the death of Luo. Everything changes when she becomes pregnant, including her attitude toward others, especially another pregnant woman. Still, they are forced to leave their son behind for the safety of all concerned and then Little Turnip follows a different army. All of them tell the story, in first and third person, allowing the reader to get the different perspectives. Know that the emotion level -which could be off the charts given the plot turns- is relatively low and it's a little detached. It's an interesting and informative novel which, while it might compress history a bit, is also one which educates with characters who resonate. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. This won't be for everyone but it's one I highly recommend.

[Gail · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wang tackles a heartfelt story of soldiers who were on the Long March with Mao. The year is 1934, and a young soldier falls for the crack shooter in his unit that happens to be a woman. She has had a few past relationships, but this one forms as her last boyfriend is accidentally killed.
They produce a child, and this occurrence creates another story, as the child is given up so the parents can continue to fight the Kuomintang and then the Japanese.
Mao also gave up his children for the cause and doing so didn’t seem so radical.

The book builds the story of their son, Little Turnip, and of course the main couple, Ping and Yong as they survive the war and have grown powerful within the Communist party.

Wang has done his homework, so there are many rich detailed touches in the book, and we know he did his research. It is an interesting story and certainly gives us a greater insight into the suffering of real people as they stayed loyal to the cause and how they suffered consequently.

For people who love history and want to know more about China, this is a great story.

[Lorin (paperbackbish)]

DNF @ 47%. I found the politics and the historical detail of this novel to be very interesting. Where it broke down for me was the characters — I wasn't connected to any of them at nearly halfway through the story, and I decided to stop reading. Ping is pretty awful, killing his best friend by sabotaging his weapon, all over the affections of a girl they're both interested in. And Yong herself, initially pretty cold-hearted, starts feeling empathy and this is "blamed" on her pregnancy. Haiwu I find sort of pathetic, though admittedly I stopped reading pretty early into his part of the tale. On the upside, I think the book itself is written well and clearly, and I enjoyed learning about this specific facet of Chinese history.

Thank you to Michael X. Wang, The Overlook Press, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

[Minglu Jiang · Rating 4 out of 5]

i'm not crying you are

[DeNise Malanchuk · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is about a country and history I've never taken the time to learn about. Lost in the Long March was very informative. Holy cow though, what a heart wrenching story line! I found myself on the same emotional roller coaster as the characters and was almost always able to show empathy towards the story characters and real life people that have had to make hard life decisions. Historical Fiction is typically my go to genre, so I was dissappointed that this book had no author's notes about his research or reason for writing about this particular time period. Maybe because it's the unedited proof, it lacks that section, but I sometimes find myself appreciating historical fiction books more because of the author's notes and I did really miss that in this book.

[Diana N. · Rating 3 out of 5]

So many emotions were brought out in this book, but I wanted even more. This book brings out the guilt in losing a friend, the horrors of war, love, and losing a child. The last really broke my heart.

I really felt the connection with the characters and experienced the emotions they were going through. I couldn't quite place it, but it did feel a bit disjointed here and there.

So much research went into to this book to have that historical component, but this is really a story about the people. By far, the characters were my favorite part.

[Nick Wisseman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Michael X. Wang’s Lost in the Long March follows a family across the middle third of China’s 20th century. It’s a lovely example of bottom-up historical fiction. But the story could have been even better if it had done more to integrate the big-picture events it seeks to interrogate.

Lost in the Long March opens in 1934, at an inflection point in the civil war between the Chinese Nationalists (led by Chiang Kai-shek) and the Chinese Communists (led by, among others, Mao Zedong). “The Nationalists,” Wang writes, “considered the Communist guerrillas … a threat, both martially and ideologically, to total military dictatorship of the country. And the Nationalists were losing.” But not for long. Ping, our first point-of-view character, is present for a pivotal battle that puts him and his fellow Communists on the defensive and eventually forces them into the year-long retreat known as the Long March.

Ping isn’t much of a soldier, though. Mostly, he serves as a gunsmith for Mao’s ragtag army, forging and repairing weapons in the field. He’s not a true believer, either, which isn’t unusual. “Nearly all the soldiers had been bandits or prisoners,” Wang observes through Ping, “and they cared about the Communist ideals about as much as they did their body odor.” Ping is more interested in Yong, a skinny sniper who stands out both because of her gender and her unflinching devotion to the revolution. The two become a couple, a relationship we see evolve from Yong’s perspective as well as that of Haiwu, a martial artist and friend of Ping’s. The couple’s eventual son, Little Turnip, also carries part of the novel.

Wang employs different authorial voices and tenses for certain viewpoint characters. (For example, Haiwu’s section shifts the tale from third-person limited to first. And Wang tells the last part of the book jointly through Ping and Yong’s eyes, but in present tense instead of past.) The transitions briefly knocked me out of the story, but I adapted quickly enough. What I found more challenging was the jumbled chronology.

Wang cuts back and forth across the period he’s covering, leaving Ping and Yong in the 1930s to relate Haiwu’s account from the vantage of the 1970s. Then we rewind to the 1940s to see a formative slice of Little Turnip’s upbringing, only to return to the 1970s to close on a potential reunion. The non-linear framework creates mystery, but it also glosses over key events that seem pertinent to Wang’s central message (more on that below). The defeat of the Japanese invasion, the triumph of the Communists over the Nationalists, the disastrous Great Leap Forward, the incendiary Cultural Revolution—Wang mentions them in passing, and there are some brief, table-setting summaries like the one I quoted above. But generally speaking, he isn’t interested in holding your hand and walking you through the macro-level history. Neither are his characters. “The interesting parts of the March,” Haiwu says after he’s described a development in Ping and Yong’s marriage, “at least for me, had already passed. But you know the rest of the story. You’re not here for that.”

Except what if you are? Wang explains in his afterword that, “Lost in the Long March began as notes about the history of my birth country. I was twenty-seven at the time and knew little about China’s past outside of the stories my parents and grandparents had told me. Their references … accumulated over the years, and I was determined to be ignorant of them no longer.” As part of his self-education, he immersed himself in relevant scholarship. The only problem is that Wang writes as if his readers have done the same. The way the book is structured—as what occasionally feels like an accumulation of references in literary form—assumes a certain amount of prior knowledge. If you come to the story without it, you might feel, well, lost while reading Lost in the Long March.

And that’s a shame because I think the novel is hugely successful thematically.

The main characters all suffer personal losses during the March. Haiwu loses a leg. (He also literally loses his way at one point and nearly starves to death in the woods.) Ping and Yong give up Little Turnip so they can stay in the fight. Little Turnip is robbed of a normal childhood.

The larger country fares no better. Some of this privation stems from the usual sort of horror that accompanies conflict at scale. “[T]here are lots of homeless in our country,” Haiwu reflects near the end of the book. “… lots of people with a missing arm, leg, hand, or feet … The historian Sima Qian once said, ‘War is the amputation, limb by limb, of the Middle Country.’”

But the story isn’t titled “Lost on the Long March.” Wang seems to be arguing that the Communists’ famous retreat began an ideological journey that took China decades to recover from, a trek that kept much of the nation in a disorienting, radicalized mindset. That fervor might have been necessary to stave off the Japanese, but the cost to further progress was high—and paid for far too long.

Yong admits as much while shopping shortly after Mao’s death. “Following the return of Deng Xiaoping … [l]ayers of restrictions prohibiting the enactment of “bourgeois” policies have been rolled away, and the “Four Modernizations”—agriculture, industry, technology, and military—are in the process of being implemented. It is here, in these marketplaces, that Yong begins to see the effects. It is here that she feels her decade-long ideas of a new China finally taking shape.” But there’s still much to be done. Ping and Yong have risen in the ruling Communist Party, yet they feel obligated to conserve energy by only running hot water in their bathtub once a month. And Beijing, which they help administer, can only afford to light its streets for three hours during winter evenings.

The symbolism is powerful; I’m glad I read to the end to see how Wang tied everything together. And none of the above is to say that Lost in the Long March needs lengthy primers to bridge each era. But even just a little extra context—and perhaps a less fragmented narrative—might have helped make the book more accessible to the wide audience it deserves.

(For more reviews like this one, see www.nickwisseman.com)

[John Vanderslice · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a superb historical novel. It's compelling, sad, funny, personal, and informative all at once. Like any smart writer, and he sure is smart, Michael Wang delivers history through the lens of the personal life. His two main characters, Ping and Yong, are both intriguing and in different ways deeply sympathetic. Their life stories, and the fallout of such, leads us not only along the Long March, but the Japanese battle for China in WW 2, and 70's era China after the death of Mao and the rise of Deng Xiaoping. All in one story. While we learn a lot about Chinese history, it's the personal stories that are gripping here. Very good read.

[Jim Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is not an easy read, but I enjoyed it immensely. The book is largely written in first person, but not the same person throughout the book, which gives the tale an interesting flavor. The beginning and end of the book centers on the same characters separated by forty or fifty years. The crushing process of the birth of a new order within on old traditional country is viewed on a personal level throughout the whole of the book. A very entertaining and believable tale emerges through the eyes of the various people.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lost in the Long March focuses on a difficult period of time in China, looking at both the immediate and long-term impacts of political upheavals and war both inside and outside the country. Starting in 1934, the novel begins with the story of Ping, a gunsmith recruited in the Communist army who falls in love with Yong, a skilled marksman. Yong, however, has develops a relationship with Ping's good friend Luo, and in a drunken and jealous stupor, Ping sabotages the gun of his best friend - causing Luo to lose his life. In the aftermath, Yong instinctively goes to Ping to share in her grief, and the two eventually become a couple, leading to a surprise pregnancy.

The first two sections of this novel cover Yong and Ping's perspectives, and is followed by Haiwu's story. A formerly jilted lover of Yong who risked his life for her and lost his leg, he finds recourse in helping raise Little Turnip, their child. From all of their stories, we see the difficulty of war and the impossible decision soldiers and civilians must make, including the eventual decision to leave Little Turnip behind so that they can continue forward in the Long March. Their intentions to return for their son, but Little Turnip also has intentions to find his parents as well...

I commend Wang for the extensive amount of research he put into this novel; it's clear in the details of their use of weapons, the detailed locations the army journeys to, the different groups of Chinese civilians that they encounter. This period of time for China is also one I don't find written about often, either, which is one of the main reasons I gravitated towards this novel. I did struggle with the writing style at times though; Wang's tone can be very neutral and at times bland, and many passages felt like a series of events and dialogue that didn't focus on the actual characters. While I'm sure it was intentionally done, the ending was also inconclusive, which frustrated me a little.

I think for those who enjoy plot-driven novels in the historical fiction genre, this will be a promising read, but it isn't one I'd recommend to everyone.

Thank you Overlook Press for the advance copy of this novel!

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title sums it up pretty well. Throughout the story, there is loss. At times the loss is buoyed by idealism and hope. It seemed that whenever there was a glimmer of hope it was brought down by the inhumanity of immoral wretched people.

I found the flow of the book to be very much like a trudge through misery and strangely but well-placed bits of humor I thought the story was well-written and captivating with a nice cadence (like a March). The characters each tell a part of the story, which provided excellent perspective. Is it possible to like a book but wish for a different ending?

[Peggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

n this captivating historical narrative, Ping and Luo, former gang members turned comrades in Mao's forces, encounter love, loss, and sacrifice. The dynamics between them shift as they vie for the affection of Yong, a sought-after young woman. Amidst the chaos of war, Haiwu's injury and changing dynamics reveal the complexities of relationships. Jealousy leads Ping to a drastic act, altering the course of their lives. The poignant tale unfolds through the perspectives of each character, weaving a deeply emotional and heart-wrenching story of love, betrayal, and the toll of war.

[Sue · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book didn't engage me the way I wanted it to, the way it should have. There is too much story and too many hanging threads we never find the answers to and the characters just don't ring true. Thank you to Goodreads for the opportunity to read this, but it just didn't do it for me.

[Marjory Christian]

Took me a while to get really going with this one but it got better the more I read. Finally got going to where it was the only book I was ready as I wanted ti find out what happened next. was well worth the read Thank you.

[Katie Hofstetter** · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
Unfortunately for me, I found the first 40% of the book very slow. However, the 2nd half of the book was great. But the ending left me so underwhelmed and frustrated that I can’t give anymore stars

[Julieta Anahí Vazquez]

DNF

[Cathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF.

[Susan K · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5!

[Megan Gery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deceptively intense, with sparse and simple prose but a layered, heartbreaking story. The ending gutted me.

[Adrianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book!! I attended a reading of this book by the author at my university and knew I had to read it. I was not disappointed AT ALL!! So interesting to learn about the climate of China during the 1930s war. I actually enjoyed the ending as well.