Book Project: Little Reunions

Little Reunions (小團圓) is an autobiographical novel by Chinese American author Eileen Chang (張愛玲). In this haunting reflection on her life, she retells it through Julie, a quiet yet tender girl. Recollections of Julie’s horrifying but privileged childhood in Shanghai clash with a flamboyant, sometimes incestuous cast of relations that crowd her life.

Eventually, back in Shanghai, she meets the magnetic Chih-yung, a traitor who collaborates with the Japanese puppet regime. Soon they’re in the throes of an impassioned love affair that swings back and forth between ardor and anxiety, secrecy and ruin. Like Julie’s relationship with her mother, her marriage to Chih-yung is marked by long stretches of separation interspersed with unexpected little reunions. Chang’s emotionally fraught, bitterly humorous novel lifts a fractured mirror directly in front of her own heart.