In his debut novel, Beautiful Country, Beijing Normal University writer-in-residence and former junior international tennis player J.R. Thornton provides a behind-the-scenes look at how China's state sports system selects and grooms its young tennis players. It is a cutthroat world in which young athletes become the unwitting pawns of government officials.
Thornton tells the story of an American player, Chase Robertson. Chase, 14, still reeling from the death of his brother, is sent by his father to Beijing in 2003 to attend Madame Jiang's tennis academy and live with the Zhang family, business acquaintances who have ties to the Chinese government. The boy is guided by an English-speaking, unemployed journalist named Victoria, whom his father hires. As Chase begins his stint with the Beijing National Junior Tennis Team, he comes face-to-face with the brutality of its training programs: run-down facilities and a coach with little knowledge of the sport who insists on demoralizing conditions and archaic training methods. "Those who were cut from the team left with nothing except the skills they had developed on the tennis court," observes Chase, who notes that the boys will lie about their ages and throw games in pursuit of American sponsorships to train and play in Meiguo ("beautiful country").
Using his own experience in China, Thornton excels at describing the contrasts between two cultures, revealing the fundamental philosophical differences. English translations of inherently Chinese phrases and Chinese interpretations of Western culture provide brief moments of hilarity, but Beautiful Country is, at its core, a critique of the Chinese sports system from a one-time insider privy to its workings. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant