Shanghai Baby

SHANGHAI BABY is a beautiful novel. The language is poetic and sensual yet funny and brutally honest. Coco is frank in her confusions, frustrations, elations, and joys. She is joined by a bevy of interesting characters, including a former madam, a computer hacker, a bisexual fashion stylist, an avant-garde filmmaker, drug addicts, and artists, not to mention her parents who must overcome their traditional expectations in order to understand and support her artistic and personal choices. Each character is faced with the same issues as Coco and each attempts to make sense of relationships, sexuality, family, and life in a changing Chinese culture. While Hui implies the struggle between tradition and modernity is lessening (at least in cosmopolitan Shanghai) her forecast for a woman's chance to find both sexual and emotional fulfillment is less optimistic.