Lisa's other novels include Peony in Love and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.
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I did a month-long online book club for Barnes & Noble for my last book. B&N online book clubs are supposed to have a moderator who asks questions and guides the conversation. This time, however, the moderator didn't show up. So there I was with a group of women --- total strangers to me and to each other --- from all across the country, trying to lead a conversation about Peony in Love. Right at that time I was thinking a lot about the Chinese and Western concepts of fate, fortune and destiny and how I might incorporate those ideas into Shanghai Girls. So instead of the women asking me questions, I shifted our conversation away from Peony in Love to these more philosophical ideas. The women not only helped me clarify my own thinking about fate, fortune and destiny --- those three words ended up dividing the three sections of the novel --- but some of their thoughts and words appear in the book as well.
Book clubs always ask what I'm working on next. During the last two years when I was asked this, I told them about Shanghai Girls, which is about two sisters. Always the conversation would turn to the often slippery and problematic relationship between sisters. I had my own ideas about this and had them in my outline for Shanghai Girls, but I began to question my decisions. One day, when I was on the phone with the 12th Street Book Club, I asked, "Is there anything your sister could do that would be unforgivable, and what would you do if that happened?" The women in the book club kept insisting that --- even though they'd had fights with their sisters and maybe hadn't spoken to them in years --- "sisters were for life." That simple sentence stayed with me and convinced me that my instinct was right, even if it meant I had to change my plot. This was the correct choice and one I was working toward myself, but these women acted as my sounding boards, unknowingly helping me to make the right human and artistic choices.
Finally, I was a live auction item for a library fundraiser in Fairfield, California. The winner would fly her book group to Los Angeles, where I would treat the members to a dim sum lunch, take them on a tour of Chinatown and then give them signed copies of my books. I thought, They'll never come. But they did! We had our lunch, and then we began the tour. The women were having a wonderful time, but I became increasingly devastated. As we visited with my family in their various Chinatown enterprises, some of which have been in business for more than 100 years, I realized that all the people and places who had made me who I am --- as a woman and as a writer --- were going to be gone in a few years. I know we all experience this feeling of loss at some point in our lives and that it becomes --- sadly --- more frequent as we get older. But I'm in it right now. That feeling of loss became the emotional heart of Shanghai Girls, and I don't know if I would have found it if not for the Fairfield Book Club's inadvertent help.
So thank you to all the women in book clubs who helped me. I know that Shanghai Girls is a better book because of you.
---Lisa See
Also by Lisa See on RGG.com:
Lisa See's Thank You to Book Clubs
How Book Clubs Have Changed