Night in Shanghai

""Nicole Mones conjures up the jazz-filled, complex, turbulent world of Shanghai just before World War II. A rich and thoroughly captivating read."--Gail Tsukiyama, author of The Samurai's Garden Sailing to Shanghai in 1936 to lead a black jazz orchestra, Thomas Greene goes from being flat broke in segregated Baltimore to living in a mansion with servants of his own, and from the classical piano pieces he was trained to play to the toe-tapping swing of the big band era. Song Yuhua is refined, educated, and bonded since age eighteen to Shanghai's most powerful crime boss in payment for her father's gambling debts. Outwardly submissive, she burns with rage, longs for escape, and risks her life spying on her master for the Communist Party. With Shanghai shattered by the Japanese invasion, Thomas and Song find their way to each other and forge a bond from which neither can back down in the turbulent years that follow. Torn between music and survival, freedom and commitment, love and war, they navigate the dangers leading to world war until the moment when they must cast their lots in Night in Shanghai's final, impossible choice. "--

"Historical fiction at its best."
—Alan Cheuse, All Things Considered, NPR "Mones' engrossing historical novel illuminates the danger, depravity, and drama of this dark period with brave authenticity."
—Carol Haggas, Booklist "Keeps the suspense mounting until the end."
—Kirkus Reviews "Historical fiction fans will not be disappointed."
—Library Journal "With a magician's sleight of hand, Nicole Mones conjures up the jazz-filled, complex, turbulent world of Shanghai just before World War II. A rich and thoroughly captivating read."
—Gail Tsukiyama, author of The Samurai's Garden "What an incredible thing Mones does in this novel of the compelling, sexy, rich and complicated world of historical Shanghai."
—Marisa Silver, author of Mary Coin "Mones' genius lies in her attention for detail... NIGHT IN SHANGHAI is a riveting, entertaining and illuminating look at a moment that has been largely lost from history."
—January Magazine "Real-life historical figures and fictional characters are cleverly intertwined in this gripping story. Shanghai's seedy underbelly is exposed, and woven into the tor-tapping swing of the big-band era... powerful."
—the West Australian, Perth "An entertainingly engrossing story of love, life and passion couched in an enlightening, erudite　exposé　of the nuanced historical events that culminated in World War II. A novel to be savored.. and remembered for a long time."
—June J. McInerney, authorexposure.com "Both of them young and awkward, but gifted and smart, (Thomas and Song) make for an odd but brilliant pair of lovers. They light up the pages of this novel.... Night in Shanghai, an intelligent historical romance, shows off with forceful insight, terrific characters, and a telling sense of detail. And, folks, it swings."
—Alan Cheuse, All Things Considered, NPR

Auteur
NICOLE MONES is the prizewinning author of four novels, Night in Shanghai, The Last Chinese Chef, Lost in**Translation, and A Cup of Light, which are published in more than twenty-five countries.

Texte du rabat

From the author of The Last Chinese Chef, a love story between a black musician and a gangster's translator set against Shanghai's dazzling jazz age and the looming menace of World War II, and "a rich and thoroughly captivating read." (Gail Tsukiyama, author of The Samurai's Garden) "Historical fiction at its best." --Alan Cheuse, All Things Considered Sailing to Shanghai in 1936, Thomas Greene goes from playing classical piano for pennies in segregated Baltimore to living in a mansion with his own servants, the leader of a black jazz orchestra. Song Yuhua has been bonded since age eighteen to Shanghai's toughest crime boss, but risks her life spying on him for the Communist Party. With Shanghai shattered by the Japanese invasion, Thomas and Song find one another and forge a bond neither can deny. Torn between music and survival, freedom and commitment, love and war, they navigate the city's growing dangers until the moment when they must cast their lots in Night in Shanghai's final, impossible choice.

Résumé
From the author of The Last Chinese Chef, a love story between a black musician and a gangster's translator set against Shanghai's dazzling jazz age and the looming menace of World War II, and "a rich and thoroughly captivating read." (Gail Tsukiyama, author of The Samurai's Garden)

Historical fiction at its best. Alan Cheuse, All Things Considered

Sailing to Shanghai in 1936, Thomas Greene goes from playing classical piano for pennies in segregated Baltimore to living in a mansion with his own servants, the leader of a black jazz orchestra. Song Yuhua has been bonded since age eighteen to Shanghai's toughest crime boss, but risks her life spying on him for the Communist Party. With Shanghai shattered by the Japanese invasion, Thomas and Song find one another and forge a bond neither can deny. Torn between music and survival, freedom and commitment, love and war, they navigate the city's growing dangers until the moment when they must cast their lots in Night in Shanghai's final, impossible choice.

Échantillon de lecture
**Disorder Within,
Disaster Without
•  •  •
*The years before the war forced everyone in Shanghai to choose: Nationalists or Communists? Resist the Japanese invaders or collaborate with them? Even passivity became a choice, a gamble, a hand consciously played. As for me, Song Yuhua, my hand was forced—I belonged to Du Yuesheng, and though I served him in public, through my education, rather than in private, as did other women, I was his indentured property, to do with as he pleased until my thirty-third birthday. Only in my secret mind was I free, so it was there, naturally, that I staked everything of my life that mattered.

   It was 1936; war was coming. Conflict with foreign powers had been eating at China for a century, since the Opium Wars first partitioned port cities such as Shanghai into foreign-controlled districts. We had already grown accustomed to being colonized, but then Japan’s southward expansion from its base in Manchuria turned into an all-out invasion. The Japanese ate up more and more of the northeast, and drew dangerously close to Peking, yet still Chiang Kai-shek did not fight them. His Nationalist armies fought only the Communists, who he believed posed the greater threat. When the Imperial Army pushed hard enough, he simply withdrew and conceded territory to Japan. The wrath of heaven and the resentment of men could be felt everywhere. To so many of us, Chiang’s policy, “first internal pacification, then external resistance,” seemed like treason.

   What choice did I have? I joined his enemies on the left, so secretly it was* ren bu zhi, gui bu jue, *neither known by man nor felt by ghosts. At last I was living for something, and by then I didn’t care if it led to punishment or even death. I knew I was going to die anyway, maybe in the war that was about to engulf me and Lin Ming and Thomas Greene, or maybe, if my secret was betrayed, at the wrong end of a gun in some Shanghai alley. For all the glitter of its golden era, the city during those years dealt death and life in equal measure.

   Ye Shanghai was what everyone called that time and place—Night in Shanghai, after the popular song by Zhou Xuan. It was a world of pleasure, permission, and nightlife, which was destined to evaporate the moment Shanghai fell to Japan. Jazz was the sun around which this paradise revolved, the rhythm that drove its ni…