Review of Women of Silk 6 '09

Women of Silk (author: Gail Tsukiyama)

Women of Silk was my book clubs novel for June. It is a  moving coming-of-age novel about a young Chinese woman sold into the silk trade by her poor parents.  Born into a traditional patriarchal family, 7 year old Pei enjoys what she can of her pastoral town while being dominated at home by her taciturn father. She is one of several daughters in the family and, according to a fortuneteller in the nearby town, is destined to be "non-marrying." Her father, who is facing crop failure and famine due to drought, decides to sell Pei off to Auntie Yee, a warm, nurturing woman who runs a home for the silk workers.

Many other young women have met similar fates to that of Pei, and have also been sent to Auntie Yee by their families to make money working in the silk mills.  But all is not as bleak as it sounds. The girls enjoy an independence that is rare for women living in turn of the Century China.  They make lots of money…. Usually enough to support both themselves and their families, and have some left over for personal indulgences. They learn to establish lasting, deep bonds with each other.  As adults they can join the Silk Sisterhood (much like a union).  This allows they  look forward to a happy spinster retirement at the age of forty.   

Although initially untouched by the war with Japan, which rages miles away, the community eventually turns its attentions to the world furor, along with the combined difficulties of monsoons, isolation, strike, war and death taking their toll on the girls and Auntie Yee.  The self reliance skills, and ability to network that the girls have learned in the Silk Trade help them to survive through all of these disasters. In short the moral is that sometimes the hardest lessons in life are often the ones that best strengthen and prepare us for life.

In some ways this was a simplistic book.  Stylistically it  reminded me a bit of a Pearl Buck novel.