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    Night in Shanghai
    Night in Shanghai
    Night in Shanghai
    Audiobook9 hours

    Night in Shanghai

    Written by Nicole Mones

    Narrated by Emily Woo Zeller

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In 1936, classical pianist Thomas Greene is recruited to Shanghai to lead a jazz orchestra of fellow African-American expats. From being flat broke in segregated Baltimore to living in a mansion with servants of his own, he becomes the toast of a city obsessed with music, money, pleasure, and power, even as it ignores the rising winds of war.

    Song Yuhua is refined and educated, and has been 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 and risks her life spying on her master for the Communist Party.

    Only when Shanghai is shattered by the Japanese invasion do Song and Thomas find their way to each other. Though their union is forbidden, neither can back down from it in the turbulent years of occupation and resistance that follow. Torn between music and survival, freedom and commitment, love and world war, they are borne on an irresistible riff of melody and improvisation to Night in Shanghai's final, impossible choice.

    In this stunningly researched novel, Nicole Mones not only tells the forgotten story of black musicians in the Chinese jazz age, but also weaves in a startling true tale of Holocaust heroism little-known in the West.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateMay 6, 2014
    ISBN9781494571610
    Night in Shanghai
    Author

    Nicole Mones

    Nicole Mones is the author of the award-winning novels THE LAST CHINESE CHEF, LOST IN TRANSLATION and A CUP OF LIGHT, which are in print in more than twenty languages. She started a textile business in China at the end of the Cultural Revolution and ran it for eighteen years, and she brings to her fiction writing an in-depth understanding of China and its culture. Her nonfiction writing on China has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Gourmet and the Washington Post. She is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. She lives in Portland, Oregon. www.nicolemones.com

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    Reviews for Night in Shanghai

    3.5/5

    28 ratings3 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This is a wonderful story of a young black musician Thomas Greene, who, in 1936, leaves the segregated USA to work in as a band leader in Shanghai. The jazz scene in Shanghai in vibrant and open and accepting to blacks. However, Thomas is unaware that war is brewing between Japan and China as well as in Europe. Soon after finding success and respect in his new home the realities of war make themselves known.

      Mones has included many real historical people in her story, including musicians, politicians, key military figures and even victims of crime. She has done an extraordinary amount of research including the discovery of a long "lost" article about a Jewish Resettlement Plan that was to create a community of 100, 000 Jews on the China-Burmese border - it never came to fruition, but how fascinating!

      The book also gives us insight into the Green Gang who had a strong presence in the city, the Shanghai nightlife and the Concession system of a city divided into Foreign communities- Concessions- where each country was allowed to enact their own "laws". Thomas learns which parts of the city are safe and open to him and which are dangerous - the American Concession still had racial laws! Later we see how the Japanese siege of the city impacted the lives of the differing citizens, and some of what we learn is surprising.

      Communism was a new movement in China and there is a struggle between the Nationalists and the Communists as well the invading Japanese. Thomas is aware of this but we are given additional insight through the eyes of his connected friend Lin Ming and Thomas' forbidden lover. There is also another storyline involving the Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler, many of them musicians, and how Ho Feng-Shan, the Chinese Consul in Vienna saved thousands of them by writing fake visas.

      Throughout the novel we are engrossed in the story of Thomas, his love of music, his struggle to stay in Shanghai, continue playing his music, keep his friends safe, keep himself safe, and finally to make difficult choices. Lovers of music will relish the descriptions of the music, the rich music scene in Shanghai and Thomas' musical growth. We also read about the food, the clothing, housing, gambling, opium, concubines, and how Thomas deals with servants, shopping and more. We learn how the Japanese "introduced" their new drug - heroin.

      There are so many characters to care about in this novel, and we care about many of them. It is not a long book, but it is packed with a fascinating, moving story and an important history lesson - win-win.
    • 3/5
      An interesting novel about Shanghai during the late 1930s, on the eve of World War II. Focused on a young Chinese woman who is secretly a Communist spy and a black American musician, this novel aims to bring the very diverse and multicultural Shanghai of the early 20th century to life. Interesting reading, but I had a lot of trouble getting into the story and I found the book surprisingly short for all the tangled story-lines it contained - perhaps more character development was needed?
    • 4/5
      I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads' First Reads in exchange for an honest review. On the whole, I really enjoyed this novel. I will admit that it took me quite a while to get into. Throughout the beginning, none of the storylines really interested me and I was really lost throughout most of the narration. During this time, I felt the narration was jumpy; it would follow one character then jump to the next without much transition. Likewise, the timeline felt jumpy as the descriptions skipped from present to past and back. So to begin with I throughout it was really slow and just could not get into it.However, about halfway through, I felt myself actually enjoying it and able to follow the characters. There are a lot of stories within the text, which can be confusing at times, but overall makes a very dynamic and interesting read. Mones provides a very in-depth look at life in Shanghai during the last 1930s and early 1940s. I loved all of the details regarding Chinese culture, language, and nightlife as well as the descriptions of American jazz in Shanghai.I also really enjoyed the various notes of racial and ethnic discrimination (against African-Americans, Jews, Chinese, Japanese, etc.). Each character was so complex as they tried to navigate their ever-changing world. Song's character was marvelous on so many levels that she basically stole the story away from the other characters. If you need a reason to read this book, read it for Song's character and stay for everyone else's. Would definitely recommend this book; it was an excellent read once it got going.