![]() She hadn’t known that such worlds existed. But the city is nothing as she expected and she finds herself especially wide-eyed over the affluent Chinese, “the ones who seemed English in all but their skin color…. ![]() The eponymous piano teacher is Claire Pendleton, a newly arrived émigré and the provincial young wife of a British government engineer whom she married “to escape the dark interior of her house, her bitter mother.” She arrives in 1952 Hong Kong with myriad preconceived notions about the “unscrupulous, conniving” locals. Her timing is ingenious and controlled, and she knows exactly how much she’s willing to reveal from one moment to the next. Lee, who is of Korean heritage, was born and raised in Hong Kong and educated at Harvard. Captured in clipped, almost abbreviated language, The Piano Teacher paints vivid pictures in quick strokes. Populated with a cast of “wandering global voyagers,” Lee unfurls her story, set in Hong Kong during and after World War II, layer by layer and in cinematic snippets. You find out some of Claires unique characteristics before the story switches to eleven years earlier. Lee’s debut novel, The Piano Teacher, whispers, “Watch me.” Starting in 1952, you meet Claire, a niave young English woman, who comes to Hong Kong with her new husband and is hired by the influential Chen family as their daughters piano teacher. ![]()
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