Shanghai Baby: A Novel

Overview

The gap that divides those of us born in the 1970s and the older generation has never been so wide. Dark and edgy, deliciously naughty, an intoxicating cocktail of sex and the search for love, Shanghai Baby has already risen to cult status in mainland China. The risque contents of the breakthrough novel by hip new author Wei Hui have so alarmed Beijing authorities that thousands of copies have been confiscated and burned. As explicit as Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, as shocking as Trainspotting, this story of a beautiful writer and her erotically charged affairs jumps, howls, and hits the ground running as it depicts the new generation rising in the East. Set in the centuries-old port city of Shanghai, the novel follows the days, and nights, of the irrepressibly carnal Coco, who waits tables in a cafý when she meets her first lover, a sensitive Chinese artist. Defying her parents, Coco moves in with her boyfriend and enters a frenzied, orgasmic world of drugs and hedonism.

Editorial Reviews

Although it caused an uproar in the author's native China, Western readers will find 27-year-old Wei Hui's semiautobiographical offering reminiscent of fiction by the brat pack writers of the '80s, though more clich d and less edgy. Waitress Nikki "but my friends call me Coco after Coco Chanel" is in love with Tian Tian, a melancholy and impotent artist who falls prey to narcotics. Coco loves him madly, but not so madly that she wants to give up sex, and this is why she's also been seeing Mark, a married German businessman. Coco's deceptions, Tian Tian's problems with his wealthy mother (who he suspects killed his father) and the intertwining worlds of art and fashion are all fodder for Coco's upcoming slice-of-lifestyle novel, in which Shanghai's privileged 20-somethings are shown in their natural habitat of clubs and coffeehouses. Beneath the techno beat, though, the sore subject of Western imperialism its avatars, this time, multinational managers still lurks. Among Coco's friends, one known as Madonna stands out in particular: she earned a fortune first as a madam and then as the widow of a rich man. Wei Hui evidently wants to imitate her heroes, the beats and Henry Miller, and relishes observations like "our bodies were already tarnished, and our minds beyond help." But she spends more time analyzing people by the brands they use and the cars they drive, thus giving the book an odd air of beat fluff, as if Jack Kerouac had mated with Judith Krantz. The book is as alluring as a gossip column, but, alas, as shallow as one, too. (Sept. 11) Forecast: Forty thousand copies of Shanghai Baby were burned by the Chinese government. Proving censors make the best publicists, rights were subsequently sold in 19 countries 200,000 copies are in print in Japan alone. U.S. media curiosity is already high, but the resulting sales bounce may be minor. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Wei Hui

Wei Hui is twenty-seven years old, lives in Shanghai and is at work on her next novel. "Shanghai Baby" is Wei Hui's fourth book, and her first to be published in English. 010

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Additional Info

Imprint

Atria

Filesize

558.19 KB

Number of Pages

279

eBook ISBN

9780743424158