Summary
In the sweeping tradition of The English Patient, a gripping tale of love and betrayal set in war-torn Hong Kong. In 1942, Will Truesdale, an Englishman newly arrived in Hong Kong, falls headlong into a passionate relationship with Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite. But their love affair is soon threatened by the invasion of the Japanese as World War II overwhelms their part of the world. Will is sent to an internment camp, where he and other foreigners struggle daily for survival. Meanwhile, Trudy remains outside, forced to form dangerous alliances with the Japanese—in particular, the malevolent head of the gendarmerie, whose desperate attempts to locate a priceless collection of Chinese art lead to a chain of terrible betrayals.Ten years later, Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong and is hired by the wealthy Chen family as their daughter's piano teacher. A provincial English newlywed, Claire is seduced by the heady social life of the expatriate community. At one of its elegant cocktail parties, she meets Will, to whom she is instantly attracted—but as their affair intensifies, Claire discovers that Will's enigmatic persona hides a devastating past. As she begins to understand the true nature of the world she has entered, and long-buried secrets start to emerge, Claire learns that sometimes the price of survival is love.
Media reviews
"THE PIANO TEACHER is laced with intrigue...Readers will be enthralled by Lee's depiction of Will's relationships with his two lovers - 'Claire, with her blond and familiar femininity, English rose to Trudy's exotic scorpion' - and the unsparing way Lee unravels them."
-New York Times Book Review
"Evocative, poignant and skillfully crafted, THE PIANO TEACHER is more than an epic tale of war and a tangled, tortured love story. It is the kind of novel one consumes in great, greedy gulps, pausing (grudgingly) only when absolutely necessary ...If we measure the skill of a fiction writer by her ability to create characters and atmosphere so effortlessly real, so alive on the page, that the reader feels a sense of participatory anxiety -as if the act of reading gives one the power to somehow influence the outcome of purely imaginary events - then Lee should be counted among the very best in recent memory."
-Chicago Tribune
"Lee delivers a standout debut....The rippling of past actions through to the present lends the narrative layers of intrigue and more than a few unexpected twists. Lee covers a little-known time in Chinese history without melodrama, and deconstructs without judgment the choices people make in order to live one more day under torturous circumstances."
-Publishers Weekly (Starred)
"War, love, betrayal - an exquisite fugue of a first novel...Intensely readable..."
-O, The Oprah Magazine
"...the novel is sustained by elegant prose and a terrific sense of place. As Graham Greene evoked Vietnam in The Quiet American, Lee, born and raised in Hong Kong long after the war, captures the city as it was during World War II, its glittering veneer barely masking the panic and corruption beneath."
- Miami Herald
"Lee is at her best when describing the horrors of the blood-soaked occupation. She paints a compelling portrait of the devastating choices people make in order to survive..."
-Time Out New York
"This season's Atonement...The riveting narrative follows Claire, a conventional, middle-class British girl, as she moves to Hong Kong in the 1950s with her civil servant husband and is transformed, E.M Forster style, by the freedom of the exotic place. The book has an incredibly escapist pull...reading The Piano Teacher is the perfect vicarious voyage."
- Elle Magazine
"A lush examination of East-West relations."
-Kirkus Reviews
"Janice Y. K. Lee delivers a standout debut..."
-The Boston Globe
"...immensely satisfying debut."
-People (4 Stars)
"Lee tells two engrossing love stories....Just hide your phone before cracking this one open-or risk calling your ex."
-Marie Claire
"East meets West, and peace meets war, in a compelling debut novel."
-Body & Soul
"Sensual and gripping..."
-Good Housekeeping
"Janice Y.K. Lee makes a powerful entry into the literary world with this lush, intriguing novel..."
-January '09 Indie Next List, Bill Cusumano, Nicola's Books
"Lee has created the sort of interesting, complex characters, especially in Trudy, that drive a rich and intimate look at what happens to people under extraordinary circumstances."
-Booklist
"Rarely does one encounter a debut work as beguiling and assured as Janice Lee's THE PIANO TEACHER. Rich with intrigue, romance, and betrayal, this wonderfully written, utterly captivating novel dazzles with its sharp-eyed renderings of beau-monde Hong Kong as it is plunged into the crucible of war. With its fascinating interplay of East and West and wide cast of effervescent characters, especially the singularly haunting Trudy Liang, this is a truly transporting-and indeed irresistible-work of fiction."
-Chang-rae Lee
"This is a rare and exquisite story. It does exactly what a great novel should do - transports you out of time, out of place, into a world you can feel on your very skin."
-Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love
"One of the most insightful, elegant, and atmospheric novels I've read in a long time. Janice Lee is nothing short of brilliant and her novel is impossible to put down."
-Gary Shteyngart
