The Distant Land Of My Father

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‘My father was a millionaire in Shanghai in the 1930s.’Anna Schoene was a golden child. Her parents, Joseph and Genevieve, were rich American expats in Shanghai before the Japanese invaded, before the war intervened. Joseph Schoene had made his fortune living on his wits. He was in love with Shanghai, with China, with the idea of taking risks. Completely devoted to his daughter, he imbued her with the same love of China’s turbulent city that he had. To Anna, it seemed that the idyll would last forever. But when the Japanese army invaded, when war finally came, even Anna knew that the dream was over. Joseph, however, refused to leave. Instead, he sent his wife and daughter back to the States with the promise that they would soon be reunited. But that, too, would prove to be a dream. Anna grows up in Los Angeles and slowly, over the years, begins to learn the real story of her father – both then in Shanghai and, finally, his last years in California. Their story, ultimately, is one of love and forgiveness – and of the great gifts that a parent can give a child-The Distant Land of My Father is a moving, engaging and triumphant novel of discovery and rediscovery.

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