Rebellion : a novel / Molly Patterson.

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It's 1958, and Hazel's peaceful world has been upended by the tragic death of her husband. It's harvest time and with two small children and a farm to manage on her own, this young mother is determined to keep her land and family intact. As she grows closer to the neighboring Hughes family, she realizes the tradeoff for some freedoms is more precious than she expected.

In 1890, we see Hazel's young mother, Louisa, recently married and relocated to Illinois to what will become her family's farm. Life in the country is dictated by seasons, so too is Louisa ruled by her "weathers" of good and bad spells. What keeps her grounded is corresponding with her sister, Addie, a Christian missionary in China. The same adventurous spirit that brought Addie to China with her new husband now compels her to leave again. However, with the Boxer Rebellion underway, and violence erupting between Chinese and their unwelcome Christian intruders, Addie's life takes a mysterious and haunting turn strongly felt by her sister, Louisa, back home.

At the end of the twentieth century, Juanlan returns to her parents' home in Heng'an after college. With her father falling ill, a new highway being built, and her sister-in-law soon to give birth, Juanlan feels frozen in place, though everyone and everything seem to be rapidly changing. In search for an outlet for the live wire, a little burning blue coil she feels buried inside, she starts up a love affair with a high-ranking government official.

From rural Illinois to the far reaches of China, these four women are interconnected by actions, consequence, and spirit, each brilliantly displaying the fleeting intensity of youth, the obligation of family, and the dramatic consequence of charting their own destiny. A vibrant story of compassion and discovery set against a century of complicated relations between China and America, Rebellion celebrates those who fight against expectation in pursuit of their own thrilling fate, and introduces a rising literary star.

Reviews (5)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Three strong women and their acts of rebellion in disparate circumstances are intriguingly connected in this vividly rendered, impressive debut. Addie, an American missionary in China in the latter part of the 19th century, leaves her husband and children and the confines of a restrictive enclave to venture into the more remote parts of the country with a widowed missionary with whom she has become enamored. Addie's niece, Hazel, whom we first meet as a feisty senior in 1999, driving the car that her adult children took the keys from, has had a tough life since she became the widowed mother of two children in the 1950s. She asserts her independence by maintaining ownership of her farm and unexpectedly develops an illicit relationship with her neighbor's husband, while maintaining a connection to the man's wife. Juanlan, a 1998 college graduate with no job prospects, returns to the small Chinese town where she was born to help with the family-owned hotel. She ends up having an affair with a married, politically connected older man whom her brother introduces her to with the hope that he will give their parents official permission to open up their hotel to foreigners. We see each woman interacting with family and friends, navigating the diverse challenges she faces, achieving a hard-won sense of self worth. Most remarkable is the subtle way Patterson ties all three lives together. Agent: Ellen Levine, Trident Media Group. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Review

Patterson's debut novel sprawls across decades and continents, from the American heartland to the far reaches of China, to follow the lives of four womensome related more closely than otherswho remake themselves as circumstances allow or require.When 84-year-old Hazel goes into a nursing home in 1999, her children arrive to close up her farmhouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, and find relics of a past they can't fully understand. Abruptly the story shifts to Illinois in the 1890s, as Hazel's mother, Louisa, who has moved from Ohio to farm with her husband, receives letters from her sister Addie, who's living what seems to Louisa an exotic life in China with her missionary husband, Owen, and two sons. Another abrupt shift takes readers to 1998 China as recent college graduate Juanlan reluctantly returns to her provincial hometown to help her parents run their small hotel. While Louisa settles into a mostly contented life, the stories of Hazel, her aunt Addie, and Juanlan, whose physical connection to the others is slim at best, follow a similar thematic arc. Each recognizes that she may have more than one identity, each shrugs off passivity to take control of her life, and each is influenced by a deep relationship with another woman as she falls into an unexpected love affair. Respected widow Hazel carries on a long, secret love affair with her best friend's husband; dutiful daughter Juanlan forges a bond with her rebellious, pregnant sister-in-law while finding herself attracted to several different men; and most dramatically, Addie abandons her family to travel across China beside a woman missionary with whom she's fallen in love. Despite minor quibblesat times Patterson gets stuck in the weeds of daily minutiae, and outlier Louisa, satisfied in her quiet life, remains undevelopedHazel's, Juanlan's, and Addie's stories could each stand alone as an involving novel. A talent to watch, Patterson manages to travel broad swaths of history and geography while creating intimate moments with a refreshing lack of sentimentality; and the novel's sense of adventure makes it addictive reading. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Patterson's remarkable debut follows four women from three generations and in two different parts of the world. Sisters Addie and Louisa grow up on a farm in Illinois. Louisa stays, but Addie marries and leaves with her husband to take up missionary work in China. Later she disappears, perhaps a victim of the anti-Christian uprising known as the Boxer Rebellion. Decades later, Hazel, one of Louisa's daughters, is left with two young children and a farm to manage when her husband dies, and she finds solace in an affair with a married neighbor. In 1998, in fast-changing China, Juanlan has completed her university studies and returns home to the isolated town of Heng'an, where her family owns a small hotel. There seem to be several different novels here; Juanlan's story, in particular, is tied to the others by very slender threads. The title might lead the reader to expect large events, but, though some history lurks in the background, this is a book about the quiet unfolding of lives and the kind of rebellion that comes from following one's heart.--Quinn, Mary Ellen Copyright 2017 Booklist

New York Review of Books Review

The linchpin of this centuryspanning novel is the Boxer Rebellion, the violent 1899 uprising of Chinese nationalists against foreign hegemony. Yet Patterson's epic narrative derives its propulsive intimacy from the personal insurrections of four women against their circumstances and expectations: Addie, a committed 19th-century American missionary and mother of two; her sister, Louisa, who has ditched the comforts of their Ohio upbringing for the hardscrabble demands of an Illinois farm; Louisa's daughter, Hazel, a widowed cafeteria worker who finds renewal in an affair with her best friend's husband; and Juanlan, a college graduate in 1998 China whose interpretations of "Pride and Prejudice" seem to anticipate the Austenesque tensions of her own romantic choices. Patterson adroitly zigzags in time, threading the women's journeys with subtle detail and embellishing them with metaphors specific to each character. Yet her tailoring of narrative voices to personalities sometimes gums up the works: Louisa's prairie flatness rings true to an enervating fault. The liveliest chapters belong to Hazel, whose ironic perceptiveness imbues the soap-operatic turns of her middle years and the tough-love crustiness passed down from her mother with layers of gravitas. Having experienced her share of loss, Hazel takes perverse pleasure in watching people leave. "That's a custom I've always appreciated," she remarks. "The person driving away can only guess whether you're seeing them off as a friendly gesture or whether you're checking to make sure they're good and gone."

Library Journal Review

Four women and the paths they take at crucial times in their lives are explored in this intergenerational novel that covers two continents. Addie, a young, idealistic missionary in China, embarks on a dramatic turn from taking care of her husband and children and accompanies Poppy to a mission hundreds of miles away. On an Illinois farm, Hazel prematurely loses her husband and carries on an affair with her best friend's husband. Louisa, Addie's sister, is very concerned when she reads about the Boxer Rebellion in China and the murder of Christians. Juanlan, in present-day China, conducts an affair with a high-ranking government official while deciding what to do after college. In precise, detailed language we experience the beginning of a life; the slow defeat that cancer brings; a sudden, tragic death; and the awakening of the soul in these flesh-and-bone characters. VERDICT The Pushcart Prize-winning Patterson has written quite a debut, truly a page-turner that shows her knowledge of life in China. She's a natural storyteller with empathy for the plight of women, and book groups will have much to discuss with this sweeping, far-flung novel. [See Prepub Alert, 2/20/17.]-Lisa Rohrbaugh, Leetonia Community P.L., OH © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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