A Map of Betrayal
A Novel
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3.8 • 37 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the Year
From the award-winning author of Waiting and War Trash: a riveting tale of espionage and conflicted loyalties that spans half a century in the entwined histories of two countries—China and the United States—and two families.
When Lilian Shang, born and raised in America, discovers her father’s diary after the death of her parents, she is shocked by the secrets it contains. She knew that her father, Gary, convicted decades ago of being a mole in the CIA, was the most important Chinese spy ever caught. But his diary, an astonishing chronicle of his journey as a Communist intelligence agent, reveals the pain and longing that his double life entailed—and point to a hidden second family that he’d left behind in China. As Lilian follows her father’s trail back into the Chinese provinces, she begins to grasp the extent of his dilemma: he is a man torn between loyalty to his motherland and the love he came to feel for his adopted country. She sees how his sense of duty distorted his life, and as she starts to understand that Gary too had been betrayed, Lilian finds that it is up to her to prevent his tragedy from endangering yet another generation of Shangs.
A stunning portrait of a multinational family and an unflinching inquiry into the meaning of citizenship, patriotism, and home, A Map of Betrayal is a spy novel that only Ha Jin could write.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
From the National Book Award and PEN/Faulkner-winning author Jin (Waiting) comes a woman's inquisition into the limits of her father's loyalty to his nation and family. The narrative alternates between the present day and the years spanning 1949 to 1989. In the present, American-born Lillian Shang unravels her father Gary's mysterious life as a U.S.-based Chinese spy feeding information to the Mao administration. She pieces together his evolution from student, to spy, then prisoner he ultimately ended up being a high-profile mole caught by the CIA. Lillian undertakes her research primarily through Gary's extensive diaries, bequeathed to Lillian by his longtime mistress. Gary's story is too messy for journalistic prose alone, so Lillian travels to northeast China to connect with his other family. In doing so, she sees the pervasive duplicity that defined Gary's life abroad; his family members know little about what's happened to him since leaving decades before. When Lillian's husband is embroiled in a dubious microchip scheme with a newly acquainted Chinese cousin, the FBI materializes and Lillian must evaluate whether to respond with familial fidelity or self-preservation. Jin's subtle prose entrances; he divulges information measuredly, almost reluctantly. The result is a captivating tale that probes the Chinese political state over the past half century.
Customer Reviews
Repetitive with an infuriating second plot
This book would’ve been significantly better had the Lilian story been removed. The textbook writing style makes her appear arrogant and flat out annoying. She is presumptuous, constantly makes gross generalizations, and her language is uninteresting. Her story in general is also relatively uninteresting, but that might’ve had to do more with my aversion to her as a character. Overall, the books seems to enjoy repeating itself again and again, but it is less frustrating when in Gary’s 3rd person narrative.