Beautiful As Yesterday

Mary and Ingrid are sisters, born and brought up in China, now resident in the US. Their experiences -- of childhood, of living in a new country -- are very different, however. Mary is the older of the two; dutiful and conscientious, she has a job that pays well, a husband who works hard, a young son whose days are filled with extra-curricula activities, and friends she's made through church. Ingrid on the other hand has never settled to anything; she qualified as an accountant, yet earns a living as a translator, an interpreter and sometime tour guide, and, all the while, dreams about becoming a published writer; she's had a series of men in her life, but no-one who's lasted . . . Their diffferences are obvious, and Mary and Ingrid see relatively little of each other as a result. When their mother comes to the US for the first time, however, they can't avoid a family get-together. Amid all it stirs up, it becomes clear that the uneasy relationship between the sisters has its roots deeper than either has ever acknowledged -- and extends to their relationships with both their mother and their homeland. Written in tight, carefully-crafted prose, Fan Wu's second novel explores what it means to belong, and the myriad ways in which our background shapes our lives and our loves -- even when we think we've moved on.