Keywords: Family Saga, Japanese Occupation in China, Cultural Revolution, Sino-Japanese War, Poppy addiction, Chinese Folklore, Generational Trauma
Genre: Historical Fiction, Magical Realism
Length: short medium long
Country: China
A dark, magical realist debut family saga that moves through the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, the Cultural Revolution, and the present day to explore the effects of intergenerational trauma, the legacy of colonialism, and the inescapability of fate.
Review
I genuinely feel like my reading list over the past few months has been coordinated by the universe.
I had just come back from my trip to China, short of a month, and to give you an idea of what I’ve been reading, I picked up The Story of China by Michael Wood, followed by A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing by Alice Evelyn Yang, which is the book I’m reviewing today. At the same time, I was also reading In Darkness and Light by Tudor Alexander. It’s not about Asia, but about Romania during the Second World War and the experience of the Jewish community here. You’d think these would be it but alas, no, I’m also reading Beasts of a Little Land by Juhea Kim, about the Japanese occupation of Korea.
Looking back, I realized all of these books share one central theme: oppression. They all explore moments in history where ordinary people were forced to endure unimaginable suffering. So, while my reading has been incredibly rewarding, it has also been emotionally exhausting. These are difficult books to get through, and that’s one of the reasons it has taken me so long to come back with another review.
Now, about A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing.
“One’s family is not a brief tempest but a lifetime of mist. A constant fog, whose wet texture of hurt would always be there.”
The more I learn about Chinese history – the foreign occupations, the unequal treaties, the Sino-Japanese War, everything the Chinese people had to endure even just in natural disasters – the harder it became for me to read about those periods. It’s especially difficult knowing that many of the atrocities committed during the Japanese occupation are still not fully acknowledged in the way many people believe they should be, particularly regarding the suffering of Chinese and Korean civilians.
More generally, I have always struggled with violence.
From a rational perspective, I can understand the existence of war throughout human history. I don’t support it, and I don’t think violence should ever be a solution, but I can understand why wars happen. I can even understand violence within the context of war itself. What I cannot understand is cruelty for the sake of cruelty. The moment violence turns into torture, into inventing new ways to humiliate and dehumanize people simply because someone enjoys having that power… that’s where my mind simply refuses to follow. I cannot comprehend it.
This novel takes us directly into that darkness.
At its core, A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing is a family saga. We follow several generations through different periods of modern Chinese history: the Japanese occupation, the Cultural Revolution.
“Mao and His administration told us that the counterrevolutionaries were monsters and demons, and that made them inhuman, which made them killable. Most of us did not like our first act of violence. Some of us grew to like it; some of us never did. They shaped us into a blade, into a guillotine, and turned us loose against their enemies, but sometimes their enemies were our teacher mother father sister brother aunt uncle-“
The novel begins with ordinary life and gradually pulls us into unimaginable tragedy.
One decision by Alice Evelyn Yang deserves special praise: the structure of the novel.
Instead of telling the story chronologically, she constantly alternates between different timelines. I honestly don’t think I could have handled this book if all the horrors had been presented one after another in a linear narrative. The shifts between timelines give the reader just enough room to breathe before diving back into the story.
The novel opens with Qianze receiving an unexpected phone call. The people now living in her childhood home tell her that her father, Weihong, has suddenly appeared looking for her.
The problem is that this is a man who abandoned her years ago.
When she goes to pick him up, she discovers an elderly alcoholic whose apparent dementia has left him confused and incoherent. He wakes up talking nonsense, throws up everywhere, and completely disrupts the carefully built life she has created for herself. During his occasional moments of lucidity, he repeatedly tells her that he has a prophecy he needs to share with her… but he can never quite remember what it is.
Her internal conflict is heartbreaking. This is the man she blames for so much of her pain, yet now she finds herself responsible for taking care of him.
As the story moves between his fragmented memories and the present day, we slowly uncover his own past, his family’s story, and the trauma that shaped the man he eventually became. It’s incredibly poignant, and often very painful to read.
I also have to applaud Alice Evelyn Yang’s writing itself.
What I appreciated is that our protagonists are not famous historical figures. They don’t change the course of history. They’re simply ordinary people with families, friendships, marriages, hopes, fears, and dreams. We meet Ming and Fei while they’re still young, watching them grow up together before life forces impossible choices upon them. We meet Weihong and Kangming and Nainai and the terrible decisions they must make… and the terrible consequences they have. We meet Qianze, Kenzie, and how an unknown past can scar generations.
The author shows remarkable restraint. She knows exactly how much information to give the reader, when to switch narratives, and when to pull back before the emotional weight becomes overwhelming. Some reviewers have described this as a visceral novel, and I completely agree.
Over the past couple of years I’ve come across several debut novels that absolutely blew me away. This is one of them. If this is how Alice Evelyn Yang writes in her debut novel, I honestly cannot wait to see what she writes next. This is an incredibly strong first novel.
I also have to mention the magical realism; after all, we’re waiting on a prophecy for almost the entire book!
I’ll admit that I’m still slightly confused about some of the magical elements, but I absolutely loved their presence in the story and be sure that I’ll spend my night researching them. What impressed me even more is that Yang didn’t rely on the most internationally recognizable aspects of Chinese folklore. Instead, she drew from traditions and beliefs that feel much more local and specific to the region where her characters live. I absolutely loved that choice.
So yes, I wholeheartedly recommend this book!
Would I recommend reading some Chinese history beforehand? Honestly, I don’t know. Some people enjoy reading historical fiction first and then researching the real events afterward. Others prefer having some historical background before they begin the novel. It really depends on how your mind works. What I do believe, however, is that it would be a shame to finish this novel without becoming curious about the real history behind it.
Chinese history has fascinated me for years. I genuinely think there are very few civilizations that have demonstrated the same resilience across so many centuries of hardship. And yes, I know I talk about China all the time. At this point, I feel like my entire blog could slowly turn into one long love letter to Chinese history.
But for now, I’ll simply say this:
Thank you, Alice Evelyn Yang, for writing such a beautiful, heartbreaking novel. I’m truly grateful that I had the opportunity to read it.
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