Phoenix / Yuan Feng

Phoenix, or Yuan Feng, which is her Chinese name, meets George when she brings her mother in for a hearing test that he is to perform. She grew up in China during the very turbulent 1950s and 1960s, leading her to undergo a series of development traumas. She watches her father die as a result of injuries he sustained while fighting, and she has to endure famine while she is growing.

Much of what goes on in the novel is a result of Phoenix going to Shanghai and filling in the gaps of her mother's life by talking with her aunt Mei about it. She learns all about what led her mother to the situation she was in when Phoenix was a teenager, growing up amidst the famine and Cultural Revolution.

Yuan Feng herself nourishes passions for reading and swimming when she is younger. She grows...