Product Description

The powerful yet touching memoir of a Chinese-American woman and her grandmother by an extraordinarily talented author who has been compared to Amy Tan and Maxine Hong Kingston. Leslie Li belongs to the illustrious Li family of Guilin, China. Her paternal grandfather, Li Zongren, was China's first elected vice president, to whom Chiang Kai-shek left control of the country when he fled to Formosa. Leslie's father was studying in the US when he met and married her American-born mother.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #547021 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Like an amuse bouche, each vignette in Li's memoir tantalizes with a taste of Li's life as a Chinese-American in suburban New York, leaving readers longing for more delicious tidbits. Li chronicles incidents in her life from her 1950s childhood to her grandmother Nai-Nai's centenary in Guilin, China, in the 1980s. The essays lyrically show the tension in Li's family between her father and mother, between herself and her father, and most of all, between Li's American ways and her Chinese history. Li uses the food of her family to tell her stories: "At a Chinese table," she writes, "it's the unspoken words that count. The meal is the message." A silent meal with her Chinese-born father speaks more of the disintegration of her parents' marriage than explication could. She writes, "I... didn't want him to have to eat alone, not when my parents' marriage was dissolving, like the pierced egg yolk seeping and disappearing into his noodles." The prose comes most alive when Li focuses on Nai-Nai, who lived with the author's family for 15 years when Li was young. Leaping decades ahead, Li returns to China to visit her senile grandmother, and she begins to try to reconstruct Nai-Nai's life. The focus shifts as Li begins writing her novel, Bittersweet, and she includes some of her conjecture about the years her grandmother spent in the U.S. While readers may wish for yet more stories of Nai-Nai and of Li herself, the book is more than satisfying, and the mythical ending (Li recounts a fable of her own) is haunting. Agent, Joanne Wang. (May)

From Booklist
In the tradition of Amy Tan, novelist Li weaves stories of her family with the recipes of her ancestry. The book centers on her relationship with both her father and Nai-nai, her grandmother, who lands in New York City for an extended visit. It also concerns the push-pull bond with a heritage that demands obedience to specific high-held standards, whether involving the selection of a career or marriage. She celebrates a host of festivals, from the ubiquitous Chinese New Year with good-luck money gifts to the little-known April 4 Festival of Grave Sweeping. In stories and in the nearly 20 recipes (including Drunken Chicken and Cantonese Fried Rice), Li reveals the tale of an Asian woman caught between many different worlds and times and places. Barbara Jacobs
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
AUTHORBIO: Leslie Li is the author of Bittersweet: A Novel and coauthor of Enter the Dragon, a book of children's plays based on Chinese folktales. She has written for various publications, including the New York Times, Gourmet, Saveur, and Travel & Leisure. She divides her time between New York City and Vermont.

Customer Reviews

An interesting culinary memoir!
In "Daughters of Heaven: A Memoir with Earthly Recipes," Leslie Li wrote about her life, growing with a Chinese father and an American mother in New York City. When her paternal grandmother, Nai Nai came to live with them in the U.S., Leslie's life was very much altered. Her Nai Nai took over the kitchen and soon, the family started having very traditional Chinese cuisine. It was difficult for Leslie as she was perceived "different," since she did not bring the typical lunch to school. It took some time for Leslie to realize the wonders of her Nai Nai's cooking. The second half of the book dealt mostly with Leslie's career, raising her son alone, and her conflict with her dad.

The first half of the book was interesting as the author wrote about having to adjust life when her grandmother moved in with them. However, I felt that the second half of the book was somewhat unorganized. She mentioned in passing about her college life and her having gone to France. In addition, the author wrote about her relationship with her parents but she hardly mentioned her sibblings at all. This was still quite an interesting book to read, and I especially enjoy the recipes that the author gave throughout the book.

Stone soup and conversations with Old Man Hill
I enjoyed this book very much. Daughter of Heaven is thoughtfully composed and at the same time enormously energetic and energizing. I love the way the story coils back on itself toward the end and packs a wallop! There is a breath-like quality to the last third of the book.

The book includes many great recipes, but what I enjoyed most were all the stories about stones! My parents are both geologists so I am used to hearing fascinating stories about stones. I loved them all: the stone soup, Li's centering rock, the stone bridge between Li and her father, and especially the Afterward and the author's conversation with Old Man Hill! Lovely! 'Keep your voice low' and 'Don't swallow!'

I also found Li's description of her life as a hermit-writer inspiring. I appreciated her description of her days writing on the island in Finland- struggling not to spend to much time on survival so that more can be spent in fantasy.

My father died when I was young and as I never knew him well, I find stories about fathers and daughters very interesting. I understand that this mythical relationship is not often harmonious. I loved it when Li heaved out that her father was 'not an articulate man, even in Chinese'. (Sadly her great strength was his great weakness.)

There were many parts that moved me: when the banana leaf dragon boats appear in the pond, Li waiting in the bank on Mott and Canal with an article on Guilin to show her father, the jagged rhythm of that conversation in the restaurant, her reflections on suffering in fiction and memoirs.

Li's memoir transported me to a fascinating new world and I thank her warmly for that! This is a most inspiring reflection on the complications and adventures of growing up in a multi-cultural family.

Illuminating Daughter
I found Li's book excellent on several levels. Firstly, there is the quality of her prose -- it's elegance and quiet power. Secondly, there is the honesty coupled with a hard-earned candor which informs the entire book and keeps it anchored in the personal. But, unlike many other memoirs I was struck by the deep wisdom Leslie Li brought to family matters and to the art and craft of writing a memoir. There were passages were I was stunned by her insight not only about others, but also about writing about others.

Li creates an American girl who is more of many of us than even we know. She also is a hybrid, and her status as such has given her a unique of deep vantage point from which to write history and story. Never does she allow polemic to take the place of the particular; never can we escape into caricature. She forces us to see her, and those who made her in their complex humanity.

As with any book where one has fallen in love with those in it, I did not want the story to end. Yet, I knew that she was teaching me that the telling did have to end, as we continue to live the mystery.

A wonderful wonderful work.