Lives of the Family

International bestselling author of The Concubine's Children, Denise Chong returns to the subject of her most beloved book, the lives and times of Canada's early Chinese families.
     In 2011, Denise Chong set out to collect the history of the earliest Chinese settlers in and around Ottawa, who made their homes far from any major Chinatown. Many would open cafes, establishments that once dotted the landscape across the country and were a monument to small-town Canada. This generation of Chinese immigrants lived at the intersection of the Exclusion Act in Canada, which divided families between here and China, and 2 momentous upheavals in China: the Japanese invasion and war-time occupation; and the victory of the Communists, which ultimately led these settlers to sever ties with China.
     This book of overlapping stories explores the trajectory of a universal immigrant experience, one of looking in the rear view mirror while at the same time, travelling toward an uncertain future. Intimate, haunting and powerful, Lives of the Family reveals the immigrant's tenacity in adapting to a new world."The stories are powerful, poignant and personal, but they are also microcosms of the immigrant experience in this country of immigrants." —The Vancouver Sun

"Chong constructs a moving, well-researched . . . view, with windows that open periodically in different places and times, allowing the reader a glimpse of transpacific family life." —Winnipeg Free Press

"True stories that have the resonance and substance of fiction." —Toronto Star

"Chong seamlessly conveys an enormous amount of historical information in compelling narrative tales. Bravo." —The Georgia StraightDENISE CHONG is the author of the family memoir The Concubine's Children; The Girl in the Picture, a story of the napalm girl from the Vietnam War; and Egg on Mao, a portrayal of human rights in China. She worked in the Department of Finance and was the senior economic advisor in the Prime Minister’s Office of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. In 2013, she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. She lives with her family in Ottawa.