Product Description

Ambitious, exotic, and a classic book club read, 'The Piano Teacher' is a combination of 'Tenko' meets 'The Remains of the Day'. Sometimes the end of a love affair is only the beginning! In 1942, Will Truesdale, an Englishman newly arrived in Hong Kong, falls headlong into a passionate relationship with Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite. But their love affair is soon threatened by the invasion of the Japanese, with terrible consequences for both of them, and for members of their fragile community who will betray each other in the darkest days of the war. Ten years later, Claire Pendleton lands in Hong Kong and is hired by the wealthy Chen family as their daughter's piano teacher. A provincial English newlywed, Claire is seduced by the colony's heady social life. She soon begins an affair!only to discover that her lover's enigmatic demeanour hides a devastating past. As the threads of this compelling and engrossing novel intertwine and converge, a landscape of impossible choices emerges -- between love and safety, courage and survival, the present and above all, the past.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1349 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Sunday Times
'[A] lovely novel - it has an old-fashioned solidity and craftsmanship and effortlessly recreates the atmosphere of post-war Hong Kong.'

Review
'[An] impressive debut, which explores the moral ambiguities of war, culture, race and romantic love.'

Review
'This season's Atonement...a first-class steamer ticket to a disappearing Hong Kong.'

Customer Reviews

I don't give five stars, but I was tempted!
I've just finished the pre-publication version of this book. I was rather wary - love story - but I have to say that I couldn't put this down. It's a romance without the dirty bits, a war story without the gruesome bits, an "Empire" story without the heavy historic bits and quite believable throughout. Set in Hong Kong before, during and just after the Japanese Occupation, the tale deals with one mans infatuation with a Eurasian woman and, subsequently, his involvement with a rather sheltered, recently married Englishwoman recently arrived (The piano teacher). An engaging, well written and pleasing book that has sufficient detail to believe that the story is real without getting bogged down in pages of detail just to make the Author feel more self important.
The writer, new to me, has worked hard on the background material but, most of all, has found a remarkably good writing style that takes the reader along at a pleasant pace. I'm really impressed and hope that she can set to writing some more (and soon please). A worthwhile and very enjoyable book. I defy anyone who buys it not to be tempted to carry on for "just one more chapter" well after bedtime!

A hero and two heroines
For a story embracing war, compromise, survival and guilt there are many characters in `The Piano Teacher' but the leading man and his two heroines dominate. They are interesting and intriguing and become totally credible within the turn of events described. `The Piano Teacher' is a love story and a historical novel, covering two main periods (1941-42 and 1952-53) skilfully interwoven plus some forward and backward glances. Author Janice Lee deals sympathetically with relationships and choices, and she steers and manipulates with incisive commentaries by the hero and heroines on each other, on additional individuals, on social groups, and on nations and nationalities. Their musing and philosophising is piercing and perceptive, and the reader is unlikely to predict outcomes.

Set in Hong Kong `The Piano Teacher' is clearly well researched and the author has in-depth knowledge of Hong Kong as a place and of its people together with cognisance of the influence of `Empire' before the Japanese invasion, internment, and the `ex-pat' situation after the Second World War. She finds easy ways of defining characters, detailing circumstances, describing scenes and discussing cultures without use of fancy or florid language. The narrative flows well and varies in tempo as appropriate to issues of love and lust, loyalty and betrayal, crime and corruption, and many more emotions and traumas. There are surprises throughout, and though the final pages reveal the unexpected, the somewhat loose ending deliberately leaves the reader thinking and wondering. I deliberately refrain from producing a précis or exposing the plot - read the novel.

Everything you want a novel to be
Janice Lee's portrayal of wartime and post war Hong Kong is a compelling story of love, war and betrayal. Claire, the piano teacher of the title, arrives in Hong Kong in 1952 with her new husband Martin, and quickly becomes involved with the expat community. Some of the people she meets have survived the wartime occupation of Hong Kong by the Japanese and Claire begins an affair with the mysterious Will. As the book evolves, Claire finds out more about Will's background and the tragic events which took place during the occupation.

Lee does not shrink from describing the harsh realities of life under occupation and the brutality visited upon both native Chinese and foreign nationals alike. Hong Kong's experience is often forgotten but in the timescale she has used in this novel it is still a fairly raw and recent memory. One of the interesting sides to the book is the way in which so many of the characters reached various sorts of compromise in order to survive and it makes one wonder what one would do in similar circumstances.

A very moving and thought-provoking account which will no doubt appeal to many readers who are interested in the human condition and the way people react under pressure.