Revolution is Not a Dinner Party by Ying Chang Compestine is about Ling, a young girl growing up in Communist China during the 1970s. Ling's father is a "western" doctor and her mother is a traditional Chinese medicine doctor. General Li moves into a spare room in their apartment, and everything begins to change for Ling. Ling doesn't understand much about the Communist Party and its leader Mao, and all she is seeing is destruction and pain. Eventually, her father is forced to work as a janitor instead of a surgeon and her mother an emergency nurse on the over night shift. Their best friends, the Wongs, faced an even worse fate when Mr. Wong turns up missing, Mrs. Wong is sent to a work camp, and their son Niu, whom Ling has always regarded as brother is forced to denounce his family and become a member of the Red Guard. Eventually, Ling's father is arrested for being an "antirevolutionary," and Ling and her mother work to survive on their own with meager rations and little money.This was an excellent book. I didn't know anything about China during Mao's rule, and I am now very interested in reading more about it. The author of this novel based many of the events on her own real experiences.
