The Boat to Redemption

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"Disgraced Secretary Ku writes letters every day asking for a reprieve. He was banished from the Party when it was discovered he does not have a fish-shaped birthmark on his bottom and is therefore not the son of the revolutionary martyr Deng Siopang, but the issue of a river pirate and a prostitute. Mocked by the citizens of Milltown, Secretary Ku leaves the shore for a new life among the boat people on a fleet of industrial barges during the boom time under Chairman Mao. Refusing to renounce his status as a Party official, he maintains a distance - with Dongliang, his teenage son - from the gossipy lowlifes who populate the barges of the Golden Sparrow River. One day a feral little girl, Huixan, arrives looking for her mother, who has jumped to her death in the river. The boat people, and especially Dongliang, take her to their hearts. But Huixan sows conflict wherever she goes, and soon Dongliang is in the grip of an obsession for her. He takes on Life, Fate and the Party in the only way he knows"--Hardcover book jacket