In Mao's China, the 11 barges of the Sunnyside Fleet sail the Golden Sparrow River, each barge manned by a different family. They all join in the region's annual celebration of River Day, marking the glorious martyr's death of Deng Shaoxiang (killed smuggling guns to guerrilla fighters)--after all, the fleet's leader, Ku Wenxuan, is thought to be her son, found in a basket on the river as an infant. Not everyone believes the story, though, and now government investigators have declared him a fraud.
The Boat to Redemption is narrated by Wenxuan's half-mad son, Ku Dongliang, whose life changes when a pale woman and her child, wrapped in an army raincoat, are discovered hiding on a barge. The woman vanishes, possibly into the river in despair, and the boat people are stuck with a motherless little girl on their hands. She grows up to become Dongliang’s obsession, famous for her beauty, and the most popular barber at the People's Barbershop.
Su Tong's unusual tale is as tender and painful and glorious a love story as any reader could wish for, propelled forward by Dongliang's pursuit of the truth behind the many unanswered questions about the lives of those closest to him. By turns wildly funny, starkly sexual and almost existentially tragic, this story of three people who don't know for sure who they are makes for compulsive reading. --Nick DiMartino, Nick’s Picks, University Book Store, Seattle