Kinfolk

This could well be my favorite of Pearl Buck's books...right up there with PEONY. One thing I liked was that there was no war in it, just family relations. Oh, there was mention of communism rising, but that was incidental.

This is Pearl S. Buck at her most bewitching. At first she draws figures as clear as those in a coloring book. But soon, no one is quite who they seemed at first. The wise father is a bit cowardly and impure. The pesty little sister has great emphathy. The unsophisticated mother displays immense insight, and so on. Through their travails in New York, and in their ancestral village near Peking, the 4 Liang children and their parents will stay in your mind as fully-fleshed characters you were happy to know, and learned something in the process.

This story covers the coming-of-age of four American-raised Chinese young people in the early 1900's. James, a talented young surgeon, decides to devote his life to serving the poor in China, and his siblings follow him. His teacher-sister Mary is equally devoted, but their younger brother Peter is disillusioned by the China he sees & listens sympathetically to the growing communist party. The youngest sister, Louise, has become very westernized & can imagine no home for herself but America. The story paints an interesting picture of how these brothers & sisters struggle to find their own identity in a world that is no longer simple.