The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee
In Brief
The novel is set in Hong Kong in the 1940s and 50s, when it was still a British territory. Upon his arrival in Hong Kong, Will Truesdale meets Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite of Portuguese and Chinese descent. She and Will fall deeply in love, but are inevitably separated by World War II and the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong. Will is sent to an internment camp while Trudy becomes both the tutor and unwilling mistress of the cruel Japanese General Otsubo, who rules Hong Kong.
Ten years later Claire Pendelton, twenty-eight and newly married, moves from England to Hong Kong with her husband Martin. She is hired by the Chens, a wealthy Chinese family, to give piano lessons to their ten-year-old daughter Locket. Claire begins an affair with Will, a 43-year-old Englishman who is working as the Chens' driver, unaware of his tragic past or his former lover. The novel moves fluidly between the two love affairs that happen 10 years apart, tying together the social fabric that interweaves the lives of so many, and ultimately culminates in the revelations of war-time secrets and betrayals.
| 1. Rating | 6.0 out of 10 |
| 2. Recommended | No one in the group said they would recommend the book to a friend. |
| 3. Audience | The book would mainly suit woman over 30. |
| 4. Type of Read | The language of the book was easy to read, but it was slow in places. One member commented that it was "easy to put down". |
| 5. Quality of Author | Nobody was keen to read another book by this author. They felt the characters did not have any real depth and the book just dropped characters without saying what happened to them. |