Why a Booktrail?
1940s, 1950s: Exotic Hong Kong takes center stage in this sumptuous novel, set in the 1940s and ’50s.
The Piano Teacher
What you need to know before your trail
In 1942, Will Truesdale, an Englishman who has just arrived in Hong Kong, falls head over heels in love with Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite. However their love affair is soon threatened when the Japanese invade.
1952: Claire Pendleton lands in Hong Kong and is hired by the wealthy Chen family as their daughter’s piano teacher. Recently married, she nevertheless begins an affair…only to discover that her lover’s enigmatic demeanour hides a devastating past.
Hong Kong has only just started to reveal its secrets.
Travel Guide
Exotic Hong Kong takes center stage in this sumptuous novel, set in the 1940s and ’50s. It’s a city teeming with people, sights, sounds, and smells, and it’s home to a group of foreign nationals who enjoy the good life among the local moneyed set, in a tight-knit social enclave distanced from the culture at large.
This is a unique and fascinating portrayal of Hong Kong with two very different faces – that of a city invaded and at war and one post war where the city has tried to adapt and move on but where the scars are hidden in plain sight for many,
Wartime Hong Kong
How a city changes with the influx of Empire.Trudy Liang is half-Chinese and half-Portugese, and so she finds that her place in this Hong Kong is not as well defined as some. Most people here are either European or Chinese and straddling both is not usual at that time. This proves to be very troublesome and even dangerous when the Japanese invade.
The occupation is harsh and devastating for inhabitants of Hong Kong. The conditions and choices that people are forced to make are evocatively and emotionally described. The story of the internment camps for example are a brutal reality and a shameful as Empire gives way to Occupation. The decision now is to join the resistance or to risk becoming a prisoner of war.
1950s Hong Kong
Ten years following these events and Claire Pendleton, enters a very different kind of Hong Kong. This is the expat part of the story and the full horror of the war comes out gradually as the man she meets has survived this horrific period of invasion. What’s left from devastation is that which lingers
Where Next?
