WILD SWANS

An engrossing record of Mao’s impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love, the book describes the extraordinary lives and experiences of author Jung Chang’s family members: her grandmother, a warlord’s concubine; her mother’s struggles as a young idealistic communist; and her parents’ experience as members of the communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of 14, then worked as a peasant, a "barefoot doctor," a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving—and ultimately uplifting—detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others in Mao’s China.