Musings of a reading addict

Keywords: Chinese historical fiction, Mother-Daughter relationship, generational trauma, family history, the Chinese immigrant experience, memory

Genre: Historical fiction

Length: short medium long

Country: China/ Canada

Review

“Memory is subjective, so in that sense we are all gaslighting others somewhat when we assert our version of the past. But we have to trust our own memory, otherwise we crumble.”

Where Waters Meet is a highly acclaimed novel that tackles the weight of silence in families marked by survival. While I recognise the literary merit of Zhang Ling’s work, particularly in its harrowing depiction of Chinese history, my personal experience with the book was mixed. It is a story of immense gravity, yet the structural choices created a distance that made it difficult for me to fully connect with the narrative. You’ll see why in a bit.

The story centers on Phoenix (Feng) Yuan-Whyller, a Chinese-Canadian woman living in Toronto. Her life with her husband, George, is made a lot more complex by her elderly mother who lives with them. Rain is suffering from dementia, and the early chapters vividly portray the strain this places on the household. We witness Rain’s intense, crisis-level reactions to seemingly small triggers, creating friction between Phoenix and George. Phoenix is left grappling with the guilt of moving her mother to hospice and the realisation that she hardly knows the woman behind the “Tiger Mother” stereotype—strict, demanding, and fiercely protective.

“She didn’t want to become Mother, spending the best of her years practicing conservation and economy, shushing emotions as she did noise, dispensing a pitiful trickle of love when summoned, forever fearful of overspending and bankruptcy. She wanted to love, with a love so intense, so mad, and so mindless that her innards would hurt. For that she would give everything and hold nothing back.”

When Rain passes away, Phoenix discovers a suitcase containing old photographs and a small bottle. Driven by a need to understand the source of her mother’s trauma and her story, Phoenix travels to China to meet her Auntie Mei and uncover the truth.

This is where the novel faltered for me. The narrative employs a “book-within-a-book” format that I found distracting. As Phoenix travels through China, the historical narrative of Rain’s life is delivered via emails to her husband in Canada. Before leaving for China, George suggested she writes a book on her family history. What we see in those emails is the two of them talking about that book and/or sending parts of its manuscript.

I generally struggle with fragmented story-lines or narratives that rely heavily on time jumps and epistolary formats, and this was no exception. Rather than being transported directly into Rain’s past, I felt stuck in the “framing device.” When reading these sections, I couldn’t shake the mental image of the husband sitting at a laptop reading an email. This structural choice created a barrier to emotional immersion, at least for me.

Despite the structural friction, the content of the historical timeline is powerful. The novel covers significant and painful periods of history, including the Japanese occupation, the Chinese Civil War, and the Great Famine.

“Hunger teaches us skills in a day that would otherwise take us twenty years to learn.”

Phoenix eventually uncovers a shocking family secret regarding her lineage—specifically, that the woman she thought was her grandmother was not Rain’s biological mother. I appreciated how the author handled the mystery of her real grandmother. The book acknowledges that family history is rarely a complete picture.

Furthermore, while some reviewers have criticised the prose for feeling like “English is not the author’s first language,” I actually found this to be a strength. Phoenix and Rain are Chinese immigrants; a perfectly native English cadence would have felt disingenuous. The slight linguistic discrepancies added a layer of authenticity to their voices.

All in all, Where Waters Meet is a complex exploration of how war and famine shape the psyche of a family for generations. I appreciated that the ending does not wrap up with a neat bow; Phoenix returns to Canada changed, but without a fairytale resolution, which felt true to life.

However, I would hesitate to recommend this book to readers who, like me, prefer linear narratives and struggle with fragmented structures. If you are a reader who enjoys narrative gymnastics—loops, time jumps, and embedded stories—you will likely find this to be a masterpiece. But for those who value immersion above structural complexity, the format may prove to be an obstacle.