Word: shanghaies
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...When we meet them, the narrator and her sister are living a pampered life in 1930s Shanghai, modeling for the city's famous "beautiful girl" calendars, which were once sold to tout soap or cigarettes and now are popular collectibles. But by the end, they have had to contend with everything from Chinese mobsters and brutal Japanese soldiers to bigoted immigration officials and a rigid father...
...echoes of On Gold Mountain begin midway through, after a dramatic reversal of fortune forces the sisters to leave Shanghai. They wind up in Los Angeles as the reluctant brides to sons of a Chinatown entrepreneur to whom their father owed a gambling debt, experiencing the racism that characterized Chinese emigrant life. And later, as the story moves past 1949, a connection to See's mystery novels emerges, in the form of a key character heading across the Pacific, leaving the door open for a sequel to take place in the modern People's Republic...
...While sure to appeal to See's current fans, the book's cover (adapted from a "beautiful girl" calendar) and title suggest a desire to snare a new clutch of readers: those who can't get enough of Shanghai. Or, to be more precise, a particular Shanghai - the celebrated and notorious treaty port of the 1840s to 1940s that was divided into foreign-run and Chinese-run districts. Now often called "old Shanghai," it gained fame as a place that foreigners could go to get a glimpse of mysterious China (while still enjoying the comforts of home) and Chinese could...
...Readers fascinated by old Shanghai often know the details of treaty-port life inside out, but those hoping to catch See slipping up will be frustrated. She has done her homework - and provides a closing note that helps readers know where to turn to learn more, like to the scholarly yet accessible works of Lynn...
...Still, perhaps this criticism is unfair, since my favorite part of Shanghai Girls could be considered just such a plausibility-straining coincidence. It finds the narrator, cast as an extra in a Hollywood film, walking around a backlot version of old Shanghai - and noting how little it resembles the city she remembers...