Peach Blossom Spring, Melissa Fu’s debut novel, is a beautiful multi-generational story of a Chinese family. Beginning in 1938 in Changsha, Hunan Province, the novel opens with Meilin struggling to raise her son Renshu amidst China’s war with Japan. Forced to flee their home, Meilin and Renshu travel to city after city surviving hunger, bombings, and uncertainty. To keep Renshu’s spirits hopeful, Meilin reads to him from an antique scroll containing handprinted images of Chinese folklore; it becomes their tradition to return to the scroll in times of distress. Years pass as mother and son forge a life together — China never quite regains stable political footing, and they become used to relocating at a moment’s notice — and, before long, Renshu has grown into a man. The novel then follows the branch of Renshu’s story as he attends National Taiwan University, becomes an engineer, and eventually moves to United States as Henry Dao. He’s finally achieved success and stability, but it seems to have come at the price of his connection to his home country and Meilin. As Henry becomes a father, he grapples with how to share his Chinese heritage with his daughter Lily when it holds so much pain and loss for him. Lily’s search for identity through her college years and early adulthood rounds out this breathtaking story.

There’s something about a family saga that feels so soothing to me. I love having time to settle into the characters, to watch them grow over time; I love following the patterns in family dynamics and predicting who will repeat their ancestors’ mistakes and who will learn from them; and I love learning about history through one evolving cast of characters. Peach Blossom Spring provides all of this in the best way. Through Meilin, Renshu, and Lily’s stories, Fu not only beautifully tackles the concepts of home and belonging, but also paints the landscapes of their various residences — in Shanghai, Taiwan, New Mexico, and Texas — in rich detail. And like the fables that Meilin reads from the family scroll, Fu’s writing seems to hold magic. She writes in a way that’s both sweeping and subtle, elegant and practical, and I found myself utterly captivated from beginning to end. Peach Blossom Spring is a triumph.

I’d recommend this book to…

• Anyone looking for a moving novel centered around migration, sacrifice, and identity… it’s similar in theme to Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
• Anyone interested in traveling through the perspectives of a family, from past to present… it’s similar in style to Send for Me by Lauren Fox
• Anyone who loves a story written with both tenderness and boldness… it’s similar in tone to A Place For Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza