Editor's Note for Silent Inheritance by Stacy Mosher

     As soon as I started reading Jessica Zhang’s novel, Silent Inheritance, I knew it was something special. Here the history of China during the twentieth century is laid out in the story of several generations of a Chinese family, starting with subsistence-level farmers on one side, and wealthy landowners on the other side.

      The two families eventually come together through the marriage of Gao Hong and Daffodil, but this is no fairy tale ending. At this point, each of the original families has experienced war, revolution and inhuman slaughter, and further hardship lies ahead as the newlyweds face the chaos, violence and mental oppression of the Cultural Revolution launched by Mao Zedong.

      Born in this time of constant threat and struggle, Gao Hong and  Daffodil’s daughter Jasmine navigates the tortured relationship between her parents to eventually forge her own future in the promise and hope of post-Mao China and beyond.

      This is a lot to cover in one novel, but Jessica’s skill is displayed in her use of vignettes to illustrate the challenges of these decades through the experiences and feelings of her characters. Informed by actual events and personal knowledge, Jessica employs nuance, realism and sympathy in depicting how shattered dreams can warp the heart, but also how human kindness can shine through in the midst of brutality. Often coming close to succumbing to despair, her characters summon the courage to emerge from their trauma, battered and bruised but ready to face the future under whatever terms are available to them.

      In this respect, Silent Inheritance is not just a story of China, but of human resilience, and of locating the source of security and strength that makes survival possible – the love and loyalty of those around us. It is a story that can inspire all of us in the uncertainty of the times we live in.