“An unlikely love story set against the events of the last half-century in China . . . a poetic evocation of the country and its people.” —The New York Times
Under Fishbone Clouds is a love story, a family saga and a compendium of Chinese history, folklore, myth and culture. The Kitchen God, a Chinese deity, has been challenged by the Jade Emperor to fathom the workings of the human heart. In the course of his quest he follows the life of Jinyi and his wife Yuying, from their youth until their old age. This tale is interwoven with Chinese traditional folktales and stories from ancient Chinese history, while the omnipresent backdrop to Yuying and Jinyi’s lives is the sequence of dramatic events of recent Chinese political history, which determines the course of their lives.
“A powerful and mesmerizing novel, both mythic and intimate . . . a great accomplishment of imagination, insight, and lyricism.” —Amy Tan, New York Times-bestselling author
“Utterly beautiful and memorable . . . very fine storytelling that handles, with great care, life often at its most raw. Meekings presents us with the gift of a brilliant debut novel.” —Alexander McCall Smith, New York Times-bestselling author
“Lavishly imagined and skillfully narrated.” —The Independent
“Meekings is a bang-up storyteller, and his easy handling of rich and varied material—rustic splendor, class warfare, profound anguish, drastic social changes—will keep readers rapt. This is a beautifully told love story as well as an absorbing study in Chinese folklore and history.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“As utterly engrossing as it is well penned, this is a wonderful debut about the lengths that love can take us.” —Booklist (starred review)

Sam Meekings