Staring into the Sun: Stories from a Chinese American Family 1895-2015 > Likes and Comments
date
newest »
newest »
Bumping this one up for approval please. I think that all the info is there.
* Author(s) name(s): Madelyn Postman
* ISBN (or ASIN): 9781645387046
* Publisher: Ten16 Press
* Publication Date Year: 2026
* Publication Date Month: May
* Publication Date Day: 5
* Page count: 260
* Format (such as paperback, hardcover, ebook, audiobook, etc): paperback
* Description:
A vivid and intimate work that links memoir with the true stories of one family’s journey across continents and generations.
Spanning 120 years, Staring into the Sun traces the reverberations of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the rise and fall of family fortunes, and the glamour and grit of a millionaire, a magician, and a model, while laying bare one family’s tragedies and triumphs. From a Cantonese village in 1895 to the San Francisco Bay Area in the late twentieth century and England in 2015, Postman braids personal narrative with historical events to explore race, belonging, mental health, and intergenerational memory.
England, 2015. Madelyn dreads telling her young children about her mother, who died by suicide decades earlier. But when her child asks about skin tone and eye color, she’s compelled to share the painful truth.
A Cantonese village, 1895. Emigrating to America seems inevitable for teenage Song, whose family is starving during a drought. His grandmother tells him about Chinese emigrants’ ordeals and predicts a fate that will bring tragedy upon his descendants.
Oakland, 1921. Henri is held responsible for a theft at his brother-in-law’s store. By 1955, he owns the store but resents his business rival, whose philandering son has married Henri’s daughter Corri.
San Francisco Bay Area, 1995. Corri relies, perhaps too much, on kindness and spirituality to get her through life. She shares a crucial poem with her granddaughter Madelyn.
“Postman skillfully weaves narration throughout the book and handles difficult topics with sensitivity and grace.” —Chris Lu, former U.S. Ambassador, Deputy Secretary of Labor, White House Cabinet Secretary
“Unique, unvarnished, and deeply moving.” —Quil Lawrence, NPR Correspondent and author of Invisible Nation (Walker Books, 2009)
“An ambitious work of introspection that evocatively links biography with history.” —M. F. Alvarez, PhD, author of The Paradox of Suicide and Creativity (Lexington Books, 2020)
https://madelynpostman.com/