Synopsis:

In the best-selling tradition of The Color of Water comes a beautifully written, evocative memoir of a relationship between a mother and son—and the Chinese-American experience

In The Eighth Promise, author William Poy Lee gives us a rare view of the Asian-American experience from a mother-son perspective. His moving and complex story of growing up in the housing projects of San Francisco’s Chinatown in the 1960s and ’70s unfolds in two voices—the author’s own and that of his mother—to provide a sense of tradition and culture. It is a stunning tale of murder, injustice, fortitude, and survival. Already, this exquisitely wrought memoir is garnering rave notices.

Book Excerpt:

When political rivalries, murder, and racism ensnare a Chinatown family, a mother reaches back to ancient traditions, and a promise she once made, to save her sons.

Their marriage arranged in advance, my mother left China to meet my father in San Francisco in 1950. Before departing her ancestral village, she made eight promises to her own mother, who was staying behind. The eighth promise was to teach her children the compassionate ways of the Toisanese farming people of the Pearl River delta, a way of life honed from living in one village for a millennium, and to look after her children, however desperate the circumstances. When she bore me in early 1951 and my brother Richard in late 1952, she could not know how severely, some 20 years later, her promise would be put to the test.

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Author Comment:

ToiZounZ' -- is a performance art piece exploring the rhythmic lyricism of the Toisanese dialect utilizing a Call and Percussive Response exchange. Author in performance with Layton Doung of Yellow River Drummers using classical instruments and the vessel of the body. Visit: www.TheEighthPromise.com/ToiZounZ CHSA for a short video

Topics/Categories:

Mothers and Sons, Rural to Urban Migration; Prisons; Asian American Literature; Toisan Culture: Sisterhood Traditions; American Studies, United States; Chi Medicinal Soups; the '60s; San Francisco; Assimilation;Diversity; Cultural Identity; SF Chinatown;

Genre:

Asian-American Literature, Biography and Memoir

Type of Work:

Book

Publishers:

Rodale Press

Awards:

2007 Pen Oakland Josephine Miles Award; 2008 Ann Arbor OneCityReads Selection; 2008 San Francisco OneCityReads Nominee: 2008 Kuriyama Literary Prize Nominee

Purchase From:

Northern California Independent BookStores Association
Book Passage

Original Publish Date:

February 6, 2007

Formats and associated ISBNs:

159486456X 978-1594864568

Reading Guides:

www.TheEighthPromise.com/Readers Guide

Publishing Notes:

I would encourage you to buy this book from an independent book store. Particularly in the Bay Area, indies were the first to embrace The Eighth Promise and have a lot to do with fueling it's still growing readership. Independent bookstores nationally also support The Eighth Promise, but for many readers outside the West Coast, it seems easier to order from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Formats:

Hardcover, Paperback

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