Eve J. Chung joins our July Book Club to discuss Daughters of Shandong, a gripping historical novel of survival, resilience, and family during wartime China.
Eve J. Chung joins our July Book Club to discuss Daughters of Shandong, a gripping historical novel of survival, resilience, and family during wartime China.
This week on Book Gang, Eve J. Chung—acclaimed human rights lawyer, debut novelist, and storyteller inspired by her family's extraordinary past—joins us for a riveting conversation about her powerful historical novel, Daughters of Shandong. Eve brings a deep personal history to the page, exploring the cost of survival during China's 1948 Communist Revolution.
In this episode, we’ll talk about turning family history into fiction, the ethical challenges of writing about trauma, and how Eve researched and structured a sweeping historical novel that moves with the urgency of a thriller. Eve reveals how her experience as a human rights lawyer challenged her writing process, the unique struggles of portraying women who both resist and uphold patriarchy, and the responsibility of illuminating lesser-known history for the next generation of readers.
In this thought-provoking conversation, we discuss:
📚 Transforming Family History Into Fiction: Eve shares the moment her grandmother’s story took hold of her imagination, how she balanced fact and invention, and the research process that brought 1948 China to life. She discusses the challenges and responsibilities of fictionalizing family trauma and how she honored her relatives’ experiences while protecting their privacy.
📚 Writing Women, Power, and Patriarchy: Eve explores her approach to portraying women who both reinforce and resist patriarchal systems, including complex characters like Hai’s grandmother. She explains the importance of showing both oppression and agency within one household, and how her background in human rights law shaped her understanding of these dynamics.
📚 Illuminating Hidden History: Eve discusses the little-known historical events that inspired Daughters of Shandong, her strategies for bringing lesser-documented moments to life, and the balance between emotional intensity and reader accessibility—especially in the book’s most harrowing scenes.
📚 FREE BONUS BOOK LIST: To celebrate Eve's book, I have created a companion book list with a rather unique subgenre that I love: 21 Books About Walks. I have gathered books where the journey on foot is the story's engine, including my all-time favorites and a few new releases I can't wait to read. You can browse the full list for free on Patreon! Patrons will receive weekly printable checklists, five hidden gem titles, and a bonus spoiler episode with Eve.
Meet Eve J. Chung
Eve J. Chung is a Taiwanese American lawyer and women’s human rights specialist. She has worked on a range of issues, including torture, sexual violence, contemporary forms of slavery, and discriminatory legislation. Her writing is inspired by social justice movements and the continued struggle for equality and fundamental freedoms worldwide. She currently lives in New York with her husband, two children, and two dogs. Daughters of Shandong is her debut novel and is available on store shelves now.
NEW BOOK LIST:: 21 Incredible Books About Walks- Take a long walk through fiction and nonfiction today! (FREE TO BROWSE ON PATREON THIS WEEK)
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2026 MomAdvice Book Club Books (All 12 Selections)
Daughters of Shandong by Eve J. Chung
The Young Will Remember by Eve J. Chung
Daughters of Shandong with Eve Chung on Reflecting History
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Book Gang Podcast Transcript:
Eve J. Chung (00:00)
Hi everyone, I'm Eve J. Chung. I'm the author of Daughters of Shandong and I'm really happy to be able to be with you today.
Amy’s Warm Intro:
If you're looking for a historical novel that grabs you by the throat from its opening pages and never lets go, Daughters of Shandong, our Momadvice Book Club book for July, belongs at the very top of your reading list. Inspired by author Eve Chung's grandmother's extraordinary life, this remarkable debut transports readers to China during the 1948 Communist Revolution, where thirteen-year-old Hai watches her privileged world collapse overnight. But long before soldiers arrive, Hai has already learned that being born a girl can be its own kind of sentence. Raised in a wealthy landowning family that views daughters as burdens, she and her sisters are deemed expendable when revolution reaches their doorstep. Their father and brothers flee to safety, abandoning Hai, her mother, and her sisters to face public humiliation, political persecution, and unimaginable violence alone.
What follows is a thousand-mile odyssey that unfolds with the relentless momentum of a thriller. Forced to navigate dangerous refugee routes, overcrowded trains, sprawling camps, and unfamiliar cities, the women survive not through luck but through ingenuity. Hai barters, adapts, and slowly discovers a voice of her own as each hardship transforms her from a frightened child into a young woman determined to define her worth on her own terms. Along the way, Chung illuminates a lesser-known chapter of history while never losing sight of the deeply personal cost of displacement.
Yet Daughters of Shandong is about far more than escaping a revolution. It is a powerful examination of the generations of women discarded by the very families they sacrificed everything to protect. The novel asks a devastating question: what happens when the first people to betray you aren't your enemies, but your own family? Chung's precise, luminous prose never shies away from the brutality of war, hunger, and misogyny, but she balances every heartbreaking moment with the fierce love between sisters and a mother's unwavering determination to keep her daughters alive. Inspired by her own family's story, she transforms one woman's survival into a moving testament to resilience, hope, and the quiet revolution of women refusing to accept the roles assigned to them.
Readers who were captivated by The Girl with the Louding Voice will recognize the same unforgettable portrait of a young girl discovering her own strength in a world determined to silence her. Hai's journey lingers long after the final page, reminding us that history is often carried forward not by generals or politicians, but by ordinary women whose courage changed the futures of generations that followed. I do recommend this novel be done as an audiobook, as the narration is spectacular and brings this harrowing journey to life.
I'm excited to introduce Eve, an accomplished human rights lawyer whose talents extend far beyond sharing her family's extraordinary story. Eve's ability to write with depth and emotional insight—while raising two young children—shaped the authentic voices of her younger characters. It's remarkable how she was able to stir emotions on a page when courtrooms require her to strip away those factors to get to the heart of a case. It just so happens that, as we air this episode, Eve's second novel, The Young Will Remember, hit store shelves in May and was featured as a Picks with Promise selection in this year's Summer Reading Guide.
If you're new here, Hi! I'm Amy Allen Clark, the voice behind the Book Gang podcast and the founder of MomAdvice.com, and I'm so excited to share this free discussion on The Daughters of Shandong.
To celebrate Eve's book, I have created a companion book list with a rather unique subgenre that I love: long-walk books. I have 21 books where a journey on foot is the story's engine, including my all-time favorites and a few new releases I can't wait to read. You can browse the full list for free on Patreon by clicking the link in today’s show notes. Patrons will receive weekly printable checklists, five hidden gem titles, and a bonus episode featuring our show guests, including Eve.
This week's book club episode is open to all listeners thanks to the generous support of our Patreon community and through Buy Me a Coffee, which helped me cover this year's expenses. And if you'd like to keep the conversation going, you're invited to join our Patreon Book Club chat on July 30th at 8 PM ET, where we'll dive deeper into spoilers, themes, and reader reactions from Daughters of Shandong. Eve is going to try to join us that evening, so it should be a really special time. Membership is $5 a month, or you can prepay for the year and save 10%.
I do have a personal update, as so many of you have checked in on our family. My mother had a stroke and was in the ICU last week. She's been moved to a long-term facility to begin the necessary process of rehabilitation. As we have been navigating this, my husband has also lost his job in the tech industry, so we're upside down right now. It is a lot. I know everyone has been asking how they can help us. There are three small ways that are really helpful: If you haven't left a written review for the show on Apple podcasts this helps with attracting new people to this space, if you haven't yet joined the Patreon community or bought a Summer Reading Guide these are low-denominator investments that make a world of good because I invest much of my own personal money into our software, hosting, and help with editing each one of these hours. I will drop a link in our show notes today if you feel compelled to support us through our rocky season.
Now, let's meet this week's guest: Eve J. Chung is a Taiwanese American lawyer and women’s human rights specialist. She has worked on a range of issues, including torture, sexual violence, contemporary forms of slavery, and discriminatory legislation. Her writing is inspired by social justice movements and the continued struggle for equality and fundamental freedoms worldwide. She currently lives in New York with her husband, two children, and two dogs. The Daughters of Shandong is her debut novel and is available on store shelves now.
Finally, to our patrons who keep the lights on at Book Gang: thank you for being the kind of dreamy book club that authors write stories about to honor. Thank you for supporting human creators in a world turned upside down by AI! Now let's get chatting!
(transition music)
Amy Clark (00:08)
Yay. Well, I am so excited. Obviously we love to celebrate debut books around here and this is your debut experience. I know that you have such an illustrious career. You've already been doing so many things in your life and to add on a book is a huge undertaking. I would love to hear about your writing experience and why you wanted to tell this story in the way that you did.
Eve J. Chung (00:37)
So I always wanted to be an author and so my childhood dream was to be an author and I often tell people my parents were immigrants to this country.
And I think their goal was always stability. So I pretty much felt like I wasn't allowed to be an artist. I had to be a doctor, a lawyer or an engineer. And I'd always been drawn to the written word. I love to read. I read a ton as a kid. And so of those three (lawyer) was the best one or the one that matched my preferences the most. And I do, I do love aspects of being a lawyer and I ended up going into human rights because I've always been drawn to people's stories. So in some ways, I've always been a storyteller and a story reader, even in my professional life.
So Daughters of Shandong came out really by accident because I had my own kids. I kind of gave up on childhood dreams. It was kind of like, I'm a mom now, know, things are set. And I was with my mom and we were talking about my grandma because I was always sad that she never got to meet my children. She really pressured me to get married and have kids as I think a lot of grandmas do. And she used to always say, if you don't hurry up, I'm gonna die and I'll never see your kids. And my mom said, don't pay attention. That's what they say to pressure you. But ultimately she did pass away. And something I'm still sad about.
But my mom and I were talking about her life and I regret that we never really did this before. And in some ways, I think I always took for granted that my grandma would be there. And then when we began talking and my mom started telling me parts of the journey, I realized there was so much that was phenomenal and that I had no idea about. And so some, this was in March, 2022. And sometime within that conversation, I told my mom, this is amazing and I'm going to write a book. And if you know people in Taiwan, I mean, a lot of people have that story so it doesn't seem amazing to her and she said, how much can you really write about this? And I said, I don't know but I'll try. And so I sat down and I started writing. And that's really where this book began. There was no plan. It was very spontaneous.
Amy Clark (03:02)
Wow. Okay. I read that you had initially thought about doing a biography. Is that true?
Eve J. Chung (03:11)
Yeah, I wanted to do what they call creative nonfiction. So I wanted to do creative nonfiction initially, but then when I was interviewing my mom, there was so much that she didn't know. And if anything, it's the most traumatic parts that my grandma never talked about. So my mom knows a lot about their life in Zudsen. She knows a lot about their life in Taiwan, but then she knows nothing about Rennie’s Mill, for example. The time in Hong Kong and the time in Qingdao, she kind of had a vague idea that they stayed with a relative, but other than that there was virtually nothing.
So that's when I said I can't make this non-fiction because I have to make stuff up or I have to guess. So this also ended up being bit more interesting too because I had a lot more flexibility and it also I think gives a bit more protection to family because if they're upset by something I said I can say just tell them I lied it's fiction and I made that up so that ultimately it ended up being I think the better solution to just say this is a novel and based on a true story.
Amy Clark (04:24)
I know I totally understand that we have never, well we've only had one author on who did a biography and you know staying true to that and like all that needed to go into those components to create that book was really fascinating to read about. But I do think with your family history, there's, you know, there's an emotional lens that you are telling the story through and we are getting glimpses of obviously what your family has gone through, what they endured to get to this place. But having that separation gives you a little bit of creativity and like freedom to, you create new experiences for your characters.
Eve J. Chung (05:06)
Yeah, for sure. I made up certain characters because there were, I know they met so many people, but they might not have told anyone about them. So it did give me flexibility to actually create someone who could help move the story along in some way.
Amy Clark (05:24)
Yeah, so you make this decision that you're going to write this book. How long did this process take and what did it look like for you with getting an agent and then landing a book deal?
Eve J. Chung (05:35)
So I think my process is somewhat unusual in that I'm a lawyer by training. So I didn't know other writers or authors. Like everyone I know is a lawyer and everyone I know is a very specific type of lawyer too. So granted, I do know a lot of people with very interesting stories about surviving that, but in terms of the actual logistics of publication, I had no idea.
So I think I'm used to writing a large volume of material in a very short amount of time. I think I've always had tight deadlines and human rights is a field that's often very under-resourced. So you're one person doing the job of many people. So I wrote the first draft in three months and part of that was, that was the first draft. The first, I think, very bad, very long draft. I don't think, I have one friend who read it and I think the rest gave up in the middle or not even at the beginning probably so I was telling myself I need to get it done once I get it done I can do something with it I don't think I'll ever write anything that quickly in my life but it was just sort of this feeling that if I didn't do it now I would put it aside and life would keep going I would forget about it so I kind of made it a priority to just get that first draft done
And after it was done, googled how to get a book published. And that really is how I got this published. I used Google back then, Twitter, like author Twitter or querying Twitter was a thing. And that was a super helpful resource. I don't think it's what it used to be now, which is unfortunate because I think I learned so much just from random people on Twitter posting about their journey.
And here I think I do have to highlight my middle school teacher because it's a lot of these early teachers who have such an impact on you. Because when I wrote the, when I started writing this book, she was the first person I thought to reach out to. And when I messaged, I messaged her and I sent her part of it and I asked her if she thought it was good enough to be published and she said yes. I don't know what would have happened if she had said no, but I think that, you know, just the encouragement really helped me feel like, okay, so there's an audience for this.
And I started cold emailing agents. I didn't know any agents. I didn't know anything about agenting. Good advice for, I think, anyone who is I didn't know this then, but you can look at Publishers Marketplace, which shows you agents that sell books in your area. I really sort of went by what I found on Google. And I ended up with an amazing agent. And so much of that is just, I think, sheer luck because I was puttering around and didn't know anything about agencies. So finding an agent was, I think, the hardest part of my process, in part because I felt like I was sending emails into a void. Since, you know, you have like, it's like applying for a job, you put together a package, you write a cover letter, and it takes up a lot of time. And I think I sent out about 80 queries, heard back from like 11.
Amy Clark (08:31)
That's great!
Eve J. Chung (08:49)
There was a time when I was thinking, like, is anyone even reading these? And I remember it was October of that year that I was thinking, I will never get an agent. And you know, my mom was also saying, before this, she was saying, I'll help you self-publish. I started looking into that too, but it's also very complicated. It takes a lot of work.
But then, and this is also, I think, just kind of an anecdote. I decided to go to New Orleans. And New Orleans is my favorite city in the US, and I tell people that every time I go there, something good happens to me. It's just a good city for the arts. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's in my head, maybe it's something in the air, but I went there and that's when I got the email from an agent saying that they wanted to have a call. And so I remember that was, I think, in October and that's when everything changed. And so I ended up going with my agent and she sold the book in two weeks, which is...
Amy Clark (09:49)
Wow.
Eve J. Chung (09:51)
I know it was surprising to me. I actually didn't even know I was on sub. So I tell people that because I know a lot of authors go through this very... yeah. It's really tough. I have friends who went through that stage and I joined a submission support group in preparation for it to be similar to my querying process.
Amy Clark (10:00)
It’s the purgatory stage, like where you're just sitting around waiting for sure.
Eve J. Chung (10:14)
My agent is very busy and so I know she had said like, I'll let you know when it goes out. And then when I next heard from her, we had already had a call schedule. So I missed the entire angst ridden period. But I think because of my personality, I still had an angst ridden period where I didn't believe that it would sell anyway because I know my agent is a very confident person, so she was saying, I'm just gonna schedule the auction. And when she said that, I did tell her, what if nobody shows up? And she was like, that never happens. And I was like, but maybe it will.
So I didn't tell my husband or my parents that the book had gone to auction because in my head I was like, no one's gonna show up. It's gonna be so embarrassing. But then we actually got preempted before the auction.
Yeah, I think it happened very quickly and it was really kind of, I mean a dream come true in many ways. Like when I look back on it, it just almost feels surreal that it happened and I was asking her, know, can I actually celebrate now? Like I still couldn't believe it and she was saying like, yes, yes, you can buy yourself a cake and stuff. So I did, I bought myself a red velvet cake and, you know, I almost feel like my family didn't believe it, because I called my parents too about it, and they were excited, but I don't think they really knew what it meant. It's not that they didn't know, but it didn't really become real until we had the physical book in our hands.
Amy Clark (11:47)
For sure. I think that's so enchanting though. I feel like you got to miss a couple of those dreaded seasons of, you know, just waiting for something, some movement to happen with it. I wanted to know, is this a two book deal that you got or did you did get a two book deal? So now you're working on getting that second one out. Well, it's done. Is that correct? You've already written it.
Eve J. Chung (12:11)
Yes, it's done and it's due to be published in May 2026. Yeah.
Amy Clark (12:16)
Okay, yay. Well that will be wonderful because then when people read this one, they have another one, which is one of the benefits of actually like going backlist with our book club because then we can latch on to like a couple back to back if we want, which is really, really nice. Did you find the process to be a lot different than that with the second one versus the first one because you had this experience this first time? What was the second time like? Were you having a harder time writing it?
Eve J. Chung (12:31)
Yes, so the second one, there were a lot more challenges, but it was good in the sense that I knew I could write a book. When I was writing the first one, I doubted my ability to even write a novel. And so at least the second one, I went in thinking like, okay, I can write a book, but it's still very hard because there's the fear of, can I do it again?
I really loved the story of the second book, but it was a lot more complicated research-wise. And at least in the first book, you sort of have this, the truth is stranger than fiction thing, where if someone says, that's impossible, I can say, well, actually, no, this really happened to my family. The second one, you do kind of have that challenge of, is this believable?
But even when you look at real life, there's some people or what they do where I feel like if I as an author wrote that, people would say that no way that would happen. So it's keeping that in mind, but I also think it's in some ways burnout too because I wrote, I really put a ton of work in the first one and then the second one I also I took longer, but I wrote the main draft I think was about a year, which I think is still quite short for a book of this nature. There were definitely a few moments when I felt like I cannot finish this and I need an and eventually I did get it through but yeah. I think for me, it was really the research. The second one, the research was much tougher for various reasons that I can go into now or go into later, but it was a beast.
Amy Clark (14:34)
Yeah, well, I mean, obviously the thing that I'm thinking about is you're a human rights lawyer, you are a mom, and you're a writer. When? How? Tell me more. Tell me about your writing routines.
Eve J. Chung (14:46)
Yes. So I write in the evening after my kids go to sleep and it's sort of become my main hobby. So when I'm writing, I don't really watch TV and I do writing on the weekends as well. I think I've always been a fairly quick writer and in part, I think that's the training where you have to be. But there is a difference between writing as a lawyer and writing creatively, which that I think was another challenge when I was writing Daughters of Shandong because I'm used to writing about terrible things that happen to people but in a very unemotional way.
So when I wrote Daughters of Shandong, I remember my first draft thinking like, this is a very emotional piece of work and then being surprised when people told me there's not enough emotion in it. And I was thinking like, for me as a lawyer, this is full of emotion, this would be utterly inappropriate to present in a work context. But I think adjusting that, like talking about people's feelings, I think one of the best writing advice was talking about like perspective or like how they feel at any given moment because I think in my initial draft, I often describe what happens without talking about the character's emotion. And I think that bit of advice really changed things for me.
Both of those fields, I think, feed into my work. Both Daughters of Shandong, and my second book, The Young Will Remember, focus a lot on motherhood. And I often tell people neither of these books are books I would have been able to write before I had kids. Yeah, I think some people, I think, are very good at writing things they haven't necessarily experienced, but I just think the way I look at the world is very different, especially when I look at war and the decisions people make. There were a lot of decisions that I didn't understand, including in my own family.
Like the mom character in Daughters of Shandong there are many things I thought, why would she do that? I would have done something differently. But later as a mom, I see how much that colors everything you look at. So it's, as you know, a ton of work to have two little kids, but I think it also adds to my perspective when I'm writing. Yeah, so all of that is...
Mostly at night, but then also in like pockets of free time. So I also tell people if it wasn't for modern technology, I don't think I would have been an author because I write at the playground. Like on the weekend, I take my kids to the playground and then I would just write on my cell phone. Yeah, so where you kind of multitask.
Amy Clark (17:31)
That's, that's so impressive. You know, we have a lot of authors that have cranked out books on their phone, on their commutes. Like, you know, I love that you're doing this, you know, while you're at the park, you're still present, you're still there, but you're also like doing something that's creatively fulfilling for you. And, the motherhood aspect is so like important to this story, obviously. And it sounds like to your other story as well.
My kids are big now. And I think one thing that you probably have a specific lens to right now is that you have younger children. And so you were able to really capture both the voice of that child as well as you know what it's like to mother children that are young. You know, I feel like almost that's like a separate part of me now that my kids are so big that I forget all that was going on logistically what was going on in my head during those seasons.
Eve J. Chung (18:28)
I mean I forget what was going on in my head when I wrote the first book. So even coming to these podcasts I think like I remember part of it but so much of it is a blur now.
Amy Clark (18:38)
Yeah, we're gonna get through it. I believe we can do it. I really do. I did tell you and I will say that on air here that you were on a podcast that had a historical element. I am going to link to his podcast that he had interviewed you and he did such a phenomenal job as far as the history goes and knowing the history in a way that I will not be equipped to do.
However, I think that my superpower will be that I can lead us through a conversation for people like me who are just being introduced to this aspect of history. But for those of you that are history buffs, I'm going to put in the show notes a link to that episode if you really want to dig into it because I think it was so impressive and really gave me a new level of appreciating this book. Let's talk about the book. What is this book about Eve?
Eve J. Chung (19:31)
So this book is about my grandmother's journey from mainland China to Taiwan during the communist revolution. So she was from a wealthy land-owning family, but at that time there was so much discrimination against girls, daughters, that when the war started her father left with the rest of the family and her mother and the girls were left behind. So this is the story about how they made their way over a thousand miles from northern China to Hong Kong and eventually to Taiwan to reunite with the family.
Amy Clark (20:03)
I think what surprised me about this book in particular is it felt like I was reading a like propulsive page turning thriller. And that is not typical in a historical fiction book. I feel like most historical fiction books are pretty much structured the same. I get the same kinds of feelings. I can sink in and out. But with this, we had almost a thriller suspense thing going into the plot. Did you know that you were writing in that way or is this just something that I'm picking up on?
Eve J. Chung (20:34)
Not at all and I do think part of it is I've never been trained in creative writing so I think a lot of what I do is, I guess, just from reading other books. think that, or I tell people that I became an author because of the library. And I learned how to write really through reading other people's books, but I took one, I think, creative writing class in high school. But other than that, in college, I never took any form of creative writing. I never did an MFA.
I mean, one day when I have time, I think it might be fun to go back and do something. But I think for that reason, maybe my writing style is a bit different because it's never been, I think, formally trained, except, I guess, as a lawyer. But, you know, I had to unlearn a lot of that.
Amy Clark (21:27)
Yeah, no, I actually thought it was really refreshing. And the reason why I picked it is because I thought it was so different than a lot of the historical fiction books that we read, which have like dual timelines, and they have kind of a fixed plot line that goes along. Whereas I felt like immediately I'm concerned, like I'm immediately concerned because you pull us right into the plot with what's going to happen with this family. And we actually don't know everything. But I loved the urgency in the story.
So let's get into your story a little bit. Given that some elements of the story were, you didn't have a lot to work with necessarily within your grandmother's story. What strategies did you have to then employ to create the plot for this book?
Eve J. Chung (22:15)
So I looked at a lot of other resources and we have a lot of extended family on both sides that came from mainland China to Taiwan. So I drew on some of their experiences too. So the parts in Qingdao, for example, I drew from my mom's father's side of the family. So the part where she goes and is looking for a job and a guy says, I'm only taking people with a last name Fa. And she says, well, that's my last name. I had a, it was my grandfather's sister who did that. And so it's funny because now her name was always Fa. She just permanently changed it, even though that's not her last name.
So that's one example, but then also looking at other refugee experiences. So I knew my grandmother was in a specific refugee camp in Hong Kong. So when I looked at those experiences, I figure it's a small camp. A lot of what's happening there probably happened to her too, like the tropical storms. That was a huge problem in these encampments. So I figured, I'm sure she went through one of those as well. Which is, again, like I think the work of fiction is important because I have no idea if it happened to my grandma, but I know it happened to some people.
This includes, I think, a lot of the denunciation rallies, too. My grandmother never described in detail what happened at the denunciation rally. All we know is that she had to kneel on the ice. And in her case, it was actually a multiple. It wasn't just one. For the purpose of the book, I just made it one because I wasn't sure how long, but she went through multiple series of these I guess public trials where she just had to kneel on the ice and later I only know because she had so many knee problems and she said it was from that time. But we had other relatives who also went through these rallies. I pulled material from that and also other people's stories. Like even in the US, you have many people whose grandparents or great grandparents have some similar story that, you know, so I don't know for sure what happened, but I know that this happened to other people, including young people, depending on where they were from.
Amy Clark (24:27)
Can you explain what a denunciation rally is for listeners who haven't got to read the story? They may be unfamiliar with what that actually is.
Eve J. Chung (24:37)
Yeah, of course. It actually took me some time to find the word because there's a lot of words where you hear Chinese people talking about it. And then I'm not quite sure what the English equivalent is. a denunciation rally was essentially during the takeover, guess it would be the communist army. It's not necessarily the army but I don't think it's the Red Guard either, because the Red Guard wasn't formally established at that time, but I guess essentially an angry mob that has a public trial. So you take the enemies of the people or the so-called enemies of the people and it's sort of a public shaming session where they might have like a sign around their neck or like it looks like a dunce cap, like a white cap with letters on it. And they're supposed to confess their crimes. The level of brutality varies because this is a really unofficial system, but in our case, we had family members who were beaten to death. We had multiple family members that were beaten to death and it was a very, I mean it expanded very quickly because I think it started with maybe the wealthiest landowners, but then it sort of graduated because there's no system. It's like whoever everyone kind of hates or is angry at.
I know for my grandmother's time there was a list, like a list of families. And I don't know, I don't know what it was in later years, if it was a similar system. There's a lot of it that I actually forget now when I was researching it. But a lot of these were public executions really. Like it wasn't really a trial, it was an execution. And in my grandma's case, this is one of the few details that we learned was she was the eldest daughter.
So her father had fled and as the eldest daughter, she had to stand trial on his behalf. And at the time, I think her mom had suffered so much domestic abuse that it was sort of widely known in the village that she was treated really badly. So as the suffering wife, her mom was spared from it, but they took the eldest daughter.
Amy Clark (26:56)
Did her dad end up finding out that this had occurred or did she ever talk about it with him?
Eve J. Chung (27:02)
I think he knew, I think they told him. I don't know what he felt about it actually because I never talked to him. not even sure if they talked to each other in detail. actually something I'll go back and ask my mom because I'm really not sure.
Amy Clark (27:19)
Yeah, I was thinking about that scene in particular. I listened to this on audiobook and I loved her performance. I thought it was astounding, but I was looking up an interview with her and in it she said, quote, that scene is the most horrific despondent scene that she's ever narrated. And what I am hearing from you is that it could have been so much worse, right? Like this scene, you had lots of ways that you could have told that story. How did you approach writing that moment so that it was both truthful and also not overwhelming, I guess, to the reader?
Eve J. Chung (27:59)
So that was a very challenging scene and that actually is one of the scenes where the first draft, I sent it to a really good friend of mine who's in Slovakia actually and she read it and she told me that it's, the things are horrible but she didn't feel sorry for Hai. This was the first draft.
Amy Clark (28:17)
Wow, okay. Yeah.
Eve J. Chung (28:17)
And you know, it's great to have like good friends that are blunt.
And I remember thinking like, my goodness, like this is a problem, right? So I looked back at how I wrote it. And again, for me, as someone who is used to writing like a lawyer, I already thought like this is a very emotional scene. Like there's no evidence here. Like, right? I mean, I don't know. And so I was really at a loss for how to change that. And I think I went through that scene at least 10 different times and adjusted things.
I don't even know what it took to finally get there. I just remember kind of hating the scene because it was so hard because like I know it's awful. But a lot of I think writing is trying to communicate a message and feeling like I can't communicate this message and you know the last thing I want to do is write about something so terrible and have people be like huh well. So that I think maybe is where I really felt like I had to make the transition between being writing in more like a structured legal nonfiction way to really writing in a creative way and writing what is I think meant to be art. I think art is in art serves many purposes, but you know, it's supposed to make you feel something.
And I think, I mean, I didn't know that the audiobook narrator said that, but it actually makes me feel really, I don't want to say happy because it's such a terrible scene, but feel like I did it, like I was able to write it if she feels that way. It was a tough scene to write. I mean, again, because of the substance, but also trying to think like, okay, the substance is so terrible, but how do I, just as like a communicator, do this right?
Amy Clark (30:06)
Yeah, I mean, it was so impactful. I had tears rolling down my face. So you tapped into something because if the first draft didn't pull through and thank God for our ride and die friends who will like look at our first drafts, right? And tell us what they think about it because it allowed you to expand that moment maybe in a way that you probably weren't able to because of your training. Like you're, you're meant to be separated from your work. So this is hard work for you.
Eve J. Chung (30:17)
Yeah.
Amy Clark (30:33)
Well, let's talk about the roles of women in this story. I think you are bringing to light a lot of elements of how family is structured within this family. I'm going to quote a passage from page 11 in your book where you are talking about Hai and what her impressions are of girls, which is the impression that, you know, is given to her.
“Girls were lucky to be housed. We were lucky to be raised. We were lucky to be fed. I was jealous of Xiao but I knew that only men could worship our ancestors at the family tomb. Value men and belittle women was embedded in my understanding of our world.” So I wanna talk about how we have this juxtaposition within even one household where we're seeing the different generations of women and how you wanted to portray that for a reader like me who's reading your book.
Eve J. Chung (31:32)
So this very interesting to me to hear readers' reactions to a character like Nai Nai who is based on a real person. So my mother grew up watching her grandmother kneeling in the kitchen. This was a real punishment and there was a lot of tension with this particular woman. And when I interviewed my grandmother's sisters. They had disagreements on some issues, but one thing was they all hated this woman.
And when I wrote it, I didn't think of Nai Nai necessarily as an enemy, because I know someone asked me, like, who's the enemy in your book? And I said, like, you know, starvation and war. And someone asked, why not Nai Nai? And I don't think of her as an enemy because she's also a product of the system and she's not uncommon. I also think there's a lot of women who suffer horribly under mother-in-laws and then when they become a mother-in-law, in that generation, I mean, maybe to a certain extent today too, depending on the culture or region, but back then it was sort of like, now it's my turn. I am now like the head of the household.
And there was the cycle of abuse. There's a lot of, part of it is a seniority aspect and part of it is, I think, everyone in the household is sexist in some way. It's just different degrees. I feel like it has gotten so much better now than before, but each generation has carried some of that over. So in terms of Hai, I think she recognizes this and wants to break that mold. And part of it is, I think, the upheaval of war. You're separated from a lot of traditions and you kind of where they say, I think there's a chapter where they say, maybe we can rebuild our world differently. That might be why Hai is able to take more chances. that war itself is a good thing at all. That's absolutely not what I'm saying, but it's sort of like the disconnect. You're not in your ancestral home. You're apart from your family tomb. Nobody's worshiping there anymore.
I don't know. I think even for my own journey, like I look at relatives within my own family and I see very sexist practices and beliefs still. I hope it's okay to say this, but my paternal grandma, it was very important for her to have a male heir. And in her house, she has like 12 grandchildren and she has only a photo of my brother who's the only heir.
And this was kind of a thing where, you know, so a lot of these anecdotes are like my mom was saying when she was a child and her grandfather visited only the men got only the boys got toys so she had two brothers they got toys and she got nothing so she always says she was close to her grandma because her grandmother brought her grapes and this was like but then if you ask about it they don't I think get maybe enraged about it the way like we might do now like when I hear about it I think that's outrageous but then you know relatives like my mom will just say like you know how it was you know, Zhòngnán qīng nǔ.
That's a saying that a lot of, I think, a lot of women repeat from that time. Even now when I interviewed my grandmother's sister about something awful, she was like, know, Zhòngnán qīng nǔ, you know, that's just how it is.
Yeah, I think it's interesting how some readers today did ask whether it was exaggerated. And those are usually like younger readers and I'm glad that to them it seems so like awful that it doesn't seem real, but it really wasn't that long ago.
Amy Clark (35:15)
Yeah, yeah, I think the only thing that we can hope for is that, we see these things and you know, it is fun to not fun, I shouldn't say fun. But my Gen Zer processing things that older generations are saying and then her giving me the like, side eye and be like, what, what did they just say? And it's like, I know, I'm so glad that you get that this is not okay. Like, I'm so glad that when we get in the car, we can gossip about it and be like, what in the world? You know, because they actually pick up on stuff that I probably absorbed but didn't say a lot of things in my family because it wasn't ladylike or appropriate to say anything. And, you know, I appreciate that this generation is like, yeah, that's kind of messed up. Like, did you notice that too?
Eve J. Chung (35:45)
Yeah. Thank you. So much of, I mean, the story about the milk powder is a true story. And that's one of where, you know, they give the son milk and they give the daughter rice water. And so my grandmother, it's like one of her favorite stories to tell. And I altered it because in truth, she used to wake up in the middle of the night and give milk to her sister. And so they were always very close. And when she tells that story, she tells it like it's a funny story, right? And it's just so awful, but they, cause I've heard her the story so many times and she's always like, haha can you believe it? It was so terrible. But yeah, I think, I'm sure for me too there's stuff that like I'm used to and like I know it's bad but it doesn't like elicit like the gut wrenching horror that it might to a younger person who like luckily has been, you know, they haven't talked to older relatives that think this is normal.
Amy Clark (37:01)
Absolutely. Well, hopefully we're doing better than the next generation and the next generation will be better than us. Maybe like, let's see. Like I hope we're raising them in that way. You know, I want to talk a little bit about building that refugee experience and how you had to research for that. I mean, aspects of, how they were going to get food, how they were going to make this trek, like what all did you uncover as far as research goes to build out that track that they're gonna have to go on?
Eve J. Chung (37:34)
So a lot of this was from what my mom told me. She said they made, in Chinese the word is bean. And I translated that as flatbread. I don't know if there might have been a better translation, but it's just, to me it looks like a flatbread. And she was saying that they just made tons of those and packed them on the journey and they ate wild vegetables. So my grandmother's third sister was the one who told me about jicai, that vegetable. She was saying like, that's in the mountains and like, it's actually very delicious and you can make dumplings with it, which I don't know that vegetable. I think I, so that's why I didn't translate it. Cause I was like, I think this is like a particular to this region.
Now, sometimes in hindsight I'm like, maybe it is, there actually is better English translation and I missed it. But anyway, this, so they gathered vegetables from the mountains and the dog was a real dog. So lucky, my grandmother had a dog and she, I never heard about this dog, which surprises me because I love dogs and she never talked about this dog. In part I think there's a lot of trauma associated with like losing this dog. But she told my mom that it was this fantastic dog that was able to catch rabbits. I don't know if it ever, like, I guess at some point it must have caught a rabbit for her to say that.
But in terms of, yeah, like meat, there was very little. Food wise, it was mostly wheat based foods, like bread or I think there was also like cornmeal. Made like this, I forget what the word for it is like a hard tack, some type of hard bread that you could carry with you and from the way my - I've never eaten it. Apparently my mom has and she was saying it just tastes awful. It's like hard and dense and you can't eat it without drinking water because it's like that dense But it apparently like keeps forever. Maybe not forever, but like for a very long time. So those details I got from my mom and then in Rennie’s Mill I got that through research.
So I found material by somebody who interviewed people who came out of that camp and they talked about how there was food there. But there were queues for it. Like you had to line up and it was usually just like rice with some vegetables and you know a very basic diet. So for my grandma I know she also begged and that's a big source of contention that they begged for food and then she has a sister who according to her hoarded food and that was a big conflict between them like for almost the rest of their lives.
Amy Clark (40:14)
Which you did kind of embed with the sisters, right? One sister is eating secretly food that she's getting on the side or like raiding food. And that becomes a point of contention for your characters as well.
Eve J. Chung (40:17)
Yeah. Yeah, it's a point of contention for the whole family. So I've never met this sister. My mom has. So I'm very close to my grandma and I've met this woman maybe once. So it was like an estrangement from the family and from my mom, I know she read Daughters of Shandong and she said, you were too nice about her. She was very mean. But when I wrote it also thinking like especially with sisters there are often two sides to the story, so I didn't want to create like just this like nasty evil sister who steals food. I figured there must be some type of dynamic there so I really thought a lot about Di's character and tried to kind of put myself in her shoes and what she was thinking of.
Amy Clark (41:15)
I actually think that that element and the way that those sisters kind of like are oil and water a little bit together made it such a compelling sister story. I have a sister. Do you have a sister Eve?
Eve J. Chung (41:28)
I have a brother,
Amy Clark (41:44)
Okay. So sisters are like this though. They are really like this. Like I will still talk about my sister stealing my clothes out of my room and me like being furious and like going into her room and like taking trash bags of stuff out and like. So I have a sister and talking about it and be like, look what she took from me. Like, we were like that growing up. And then as we got older and we had children, then we both softened and we became mothers and now we're best friends. And it's just funny how that sisterly bond can be the best thing. And also like, you can just grate on each other in a way that no one else can do. So I actually think that was like a superpower within the story of the two, the way that the two of them interacted. And the food thing would definitely be something I would be so distressed about because it's like, she's doing great because she's getting food and I'm not getting food.
Eve J. Chung (42:13)
Thank you. Yeah, that was, I think, I mean, my grandmother starved during those years and if you ask my mom, my mom feels like that's why she passed away before all of her other siblings, because she bore the brunt of how bad the lack of food was. I haven't talked to the rest of them about this particular point, because it's a very, I think, contentious point, but yeah, I mean, my mom is someone who really carried the story and she's, I would say like a very filial daughter. Like she like loves her mom. I mean, we all love our moms, but she is very protective of her mom. So yeah.
Amy Clark (42:59)
Yeah. I love that. Well, I wanted to ask you, do you think writing this story changed the way that you reflect on your family's experience or even your cultural inheritance, which I know is a big question, but how has this changed your life?
Eve J. Chung (43:17)
The story is maybe reflective of my cultural inheritance in some way, or I mean in a lot of ways, I think that I never realized how much these sexist traditions bothered me until I wrote this book. And I often think of, I forget somebody said writing is not therapy, it's the opposite of that, but I find that writing has been very therapeutic for me because a lot of my inner thoughts that I wouldn't say to a person come out in the story.
I think one of the things I personally love about this book is the relationship between women in the same family because you do have like a woman you love a lot but then she's also very sexist. Like, I mean, I love my grandmother very much but my grandmother was a pretty sexist person too. Like obviously not as bad as, as Nai Nai but there's elements that I think are kind of just there. They don't think about it. And I do think that chapter where Hai reflects on her mom where they don't see it. Like even if you point it out to them, don't know, it's almost, if I were to say I'm upset by the differential treatment, they would just kind of be like, how? Like, this is just the way life is. And part of it is too, I think, is each generation gets better from their perspective. Like, it's so much better for you than it was for me. I don't know why you're complaining.
Yeah, like you have incredibly strong women like my great grandmother who took three girls from China, but then they go back to the house and suddenly it's like, okay, this is my place in this house and I will not fight back against it. So I think after writing this book, I had more forgiveness and understanding. Not that it's okay. I think these systems are really awful, but I think I look with more compassion at like the system they've been molded out of and how hard it is to break something when you go 80 years seeing the world. Not that you can't break it, like you can. I do think throughout their own lives, a lot of these women have changed, but there's some habits that like, I don't know, it just comes out of nowhere. Linked to the traditions, right? Who can worship where? I know at one point my parents were saying, you can't go to a daughter's house for Chinese New Year. It's something very small, but there's a lot of things like that. This idea that the daughter still isn't part of, you have to stay with your own family, so you can go to your son's house, but you can't go to your daughter's house.
Amy Clark (45:51)
Yeah.
Eve J. Chung (45:59)
It takes work, like conscious decisions to break those things.
Amy Clark (46:03)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Eve, on the main show here, before we exit out, I do want listeners to know that you can join me behind the paywall for $5. You'll get to participate in our book club with Eve's book and also get a little spoiler chat bonus that is not here. But on our main show, we always ask our writers what they're feeling proud of, whether it's with this project or with life in general. And it also gives me a chance to tell you that I'm so proud of you. I love this book so, so much, Eve. And I can't imagine how this stretched you and the confidence that you wrote the story. I can see the page and it is actually kind of baffling to me that you had to figure this all out. You seem like a very assured writer.
Eve J. Chung (46:35)
Thank you.
Amy Clark (46:57)
This did not read like a debut. It did not read like a debut in any sense of the word. And I'm so grateful that I got to read it. I'm so excited to get to talk about it with our book club, genuinely so proud of you for your work. But I'd like to hear what you're feeling proud of.
Eve J. Chung (46:58)
Thank you. I think it's just having a place to write stories. I never thought it was possible. To me, I think being an author seems like being an actress or an actor. Like, it happens to some people, but it doesn't happen to normal people. And I think it's finding that way. So I'm proud of essentially achieving what I wanted to do as a child. I think it's something that is done initially for my children. I wanted to leave this legacy for my children. So I'm proud that they have something to look back at. But I'm also proud of what it is for me. I think especially after you become a mom, you sort of live for other people. And having a place where I could write stories was almost part of reclaiming something that is mine.
And I felt like I didn't have that whether it's like career like you pick the career for your family or for your parents And then you know you start your own family, and everything is about you know Making your children survive, but then I kind of have this world that is very much my own
Amy Clark (48:18)
That's amazing. Well, Eve, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for being part of the Book Gang.
Eve J. Chung (48:24)
Thank you, thank you for having me and I hope your readers enjoy it.
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