Best-selling, National Book Award-winning author Ha Jin displays his impressive storytelling gifts in this richly textured examination of contemporary China and the civil unrest at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Professor Yang, a respected literature scholar, suffers a stroke and is confined to a hospital bed. Now Jian Wan, Yang's brightest student and future son-in-law, must suspend his rigorous studies to care for his mentor. Jian dutifully keeps watch as Yang begins raving madly, often pleading with unseen tormentors. Has Yang lost his grip on sanity, or is he no longer capable of hiding deeply buried, painful secrets?