Author: Laurence Yep
Publisher: Recorded Books
Rating: WARTY!
Read by George Guidall who does a decent job.
This novel was about a Chinese kid emigrating to the USA to escape the Fu Manchu who were after him in his native land. He thought he was heading for a life of riches, but he was so wrong.
He figured he'd have the easy time, but he ended-up working on the transcontinental railroad. I thought this meant that we would actually learn something about what the workers did, but we really didn't. This novel consisted of one long tirade against the appalling conditions, with every character bitching at each other and complaining bitterly, and even going on strike, but there was really nothing about the railroad. The entire story seemed to be confined to one winter, which added to the misery and all I learned was how the Chinese suffered - which I already knew - and were mean to one another.
A significant portion of the novel was set in China, where nothing interesting (not to me at any rate) happened, but it could have been set anywhere and delivered the same impact. The story in general was boring. Indeed, it had so little to do with working on the railroad that it could actually have been set anywhere, in any era, and told the same story of people being oppressed and treated as slaves. It need not even have been about the Chinese, so I was left wondering why this was written and skipping track after track because it was so tedious to listen to.
I can't recommend this. I'd rather have read a textbook about Chinese immigration, or watched a documentary, and instead read a different fictional story which held more of my interest. Jackie Chan's Shanghai Noon offers a similar message but is far more entertaining and just as fictional. Watch that instead!
