Publisher: Simon and Schuster Canada, May 11th, 2021

Format: ebook

Pages: 272

Rating: 5/5 stars

Synopsis (from Goodreads):

A lyrical novel set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution that follows a father’s quest to reunite his family before his precocious daughter’s momentous birthday, which Garth Greenwell calls “one of the most beautiful debuts I’ve read in years.”

“A beautifully written, poignant exploration of family, art, culture, immigration, and most of all, love.” —Jean Kwok, author of Searching for Sylvie Lee and Girl in Translation

How many times in life can we start over without losing ourselves?

In the summer of 1986, in a small Chinese village, ten-year-old Junie receives a momentous letter from her parents, who had left for America years ago: her father promises to return home and collect her by her twelfth birthday. But Junie’s growing determination to stay put in the idyllic countryside with her beloved grandparents threatens to derail her family’s shared future.

What Junie doesn’t know is that her parents, Momo and Cassia, are newly estranged from one another in their adopted country, each holding close private tragedies and histories from the tumultuous years of their youth during China’s Cultural Revolution. While Momo grapples anew with his deferred musical ambitions and dreams for Junie’s future in America, Cassia finally begins to wrestle with a shocking act of brutality from years ago. In order for Momo to fulfill his promise, he must make one last desperate attempt to reunite all three members of the family before Junie’s birthday—even if it means bringing painful family secrets to light.

Swimming Back to Trout River weaves together the stories of Junie, Momo, Cassia, and Dawn—a talented violinist from Momo’s past—while depicting their heartbreak and resilience, tenderly revealing the hope, compromises, and abiding ingenuity that make up the lives of immigrants. Feng’s debut is “filled with tragedy yet touched with life-affirming passion” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), and “Feng weaves a plot both surprising and inevitable, with not a word to spare”

My Review:

Thank you Simon and Schuster Canada for sending me a copy of this book.
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Read if you like: family sagas.
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This book looks at a family’s experiences in China during the Cultural Revolution, immigration to the US, and trying to find their own identities apart from their family. Momo and Cassia are young adults when the Cultural Revolution begins in China, and we get a glimpse at how some individuals might have experienced this. When Momo goes to the US for a masters program, their daughter goes to live with his parents at Trout River, and we get to see the beauty of this place both through his eyes and his daughters.
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Appreciated the perspective on immigration that this book offers. Shows not only how difficult it is, but how different it is for people even when coming from the same country. I also liked reading from the different characters perspectives, and thought this made the book more interesting.
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CW: death of a parent, miscarriage/stillborn birth, congenital amputation, racism.