Extended direct translations of the Chinese language's most scathing expletives also give a special life to the text, plunking the reader squarely in the gruff street setting of 1973 Beijing.
The abundance of communist Chinese terms are only funny in retrospect, but readers are also certain to enjoy names such as the Father, Mother, Lover and Mistress All-Rolled-Into-One to designate Chairman Mao, or the Western-Europe-Is-A-Sinking-Ship-and-China-Is-The-Only-Island-Of-Hope Building, otherwise known as Lian's local Youth Activity Center.
Hanging over the otherwise quick style and delicate handling of teenage female psychology in this book is the lackluster, dud ending, which fizzles compared with the rest of the narrative.
Nonetheless, with bright, fiery language, Wang succeeds in evoking the wild vacillations of adolescence and the insanity of the Cultural Revolution.
In the long string of personal accounts from that darkest period in China's contemporary history, The Lily Theatre stands out as an endearing story not of complete triumph over adversity, but of personal success and failure in the difficult process of reaching adulthood.
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