The River Drowns The Able Swimmer

This epic and intimate memoir follows three generations of women as they strive to define themselves against a backdrop of China’s turbulent history, from the end of the 19th century, to the Cultural Revolution, and into the present The River Drowns the Able Swimmer opens with Xujun Eberlein’s grandmother, born to a destitute peasant family on the precipice of a new era, of which her only partially bound feet become a symbol.

Decades later, as China begins to feel the stirrings of Communism, a young girl, later to become Xujun’s mother, becomes enchanted with the promises of the Cultural Revolution, which defines the world Xujun and her siblings are born into.

As the century unfolds, Xujun experiences the typical pains and euphorias of childhood and adolescence, but not without the indelible imprint of political movements and events marking her for life.

When Xujun is 12, her beloved 16-year-old sister drowns in an act of heroic martyrdom honoring Chairman Mao, shattering Xujun’s world and sowing the seed of skepticism about the promise of fulfillment through ideological devotion.

Eventually, she marries an American and leaves China for the US, but the question of a person’s role in history continues to haunt her. She dedicates time to excavating her past and uncovers secrets about her family and about Chinese history in the process.

Xujun Eberlein is an elegant and intimate writer, and her exploration of the struggle to build a life of one’s own amidst the perturbations of "capital H history" is heart wrenching, insightful, and incredibly resonant.