Book Review: Chasing Hepburn

A Book You Can Buy From Me

Book Title: Chasing Hepburn


Author: Gus Lee

Date: 2002

Publisher: Harmony / Random House

ISBN: 0-609-60876-2

Length: 532 pages

Quote: "In his ninety-first year, Dad began to tell me stories."

This is, more or less, the story Gus Lee's father told. It reads like good fiction, which parts of it obviously are; Lee freely imagines conversations people had before he was born. It also reads like biography, which parts of it also are; Lee researched parts of the family history his parents hadn't told him.

Zee-zee and Da-tsien, the young Chinese couple who would become Gus Lee's parents, are portrayed as extraordinary young people--overprivileged, brilliant, talented, hardworking, and strong-willed. Their peer group included Chiang Kai-shek, Mao Tse-tung, and Deng Hsiao-ping, all of whom Zee-zee knew slightly.

It was not proper etiquette for the young people even to pronounce their parents' names, much less share their stories with the world, but they were well educated, vaguely Christian, "modern" youth who set Chinese etiquette aside and shared the stories with Gus Lee.

Da-tsien's father was a radical philosopher who forbade the womenfolk to bind Da-tsien's feet. An attempt was made to get Da-tsien "properly" married, by a matchmaker (it was disgracefully rude for a man to approach his prospective wife's father) but Da-tsien's insistence on movie dates and motorbike rides with Zee-zee persuaded the old gentleman the matchmaker found to withdraw his offer, so the parents allowed the couple to marry for love.

Zee-zee's father was an opium addict, and apparently Zee-zee was not easy to love. His personality seems to have been extroverted--not acceptable for a proper Chinese gentleman at that time--and he did too much literal and figurative "running" to suit those around him. Hyperactive and athletic in youth, he became interested in airplanes and made a first career of flying planes for whatever gang or army would let him, beginning with Kaiser Wilhelm's army during the first World War.

Nevertheless, despite having grown up among people who thought it was normal for a rich man to have two or three wives, even in the same house, Zee-zee was monogamous. During Da-tsien's lifetime, he admitted having wanted to cheat on her only when the actress they both admired most, Katherine Hepburn, came to China and flirted with him.

The flirtation didn't go very far in China. Zee-zee "chased Hepburn" to the United States, and Da-tsien, who had done some social work before giving birth to four daughters, was able to bring three of those daughters to the United States during a difficult and dangerous adventure. There's no real suspense about Da-tsien--we already know that she'll live long enough in the United States to give birth to Gus Lee--but some of her fellow refugees won't survive the journey.

We know, too, that Da-tsien will die long before Zee-zee, because although she chases him to America and stops him "chasing Hepburn," we also know that Zee-zee will eventually team up with Amy Tan's widowed mother. The two novelists will become friends and, to some extent, collaborators, which is why some scenes in Chasing Hepburn remind me of Amy Tan's novels.

Although this is an adult book, it could have been written with high school or college students in mind. In addition to some controversial historical comments, Lee also takes provocative looks at philosophy, politics, and religion in both countries. There's enough sex and violence to interest teenagers, although it takes place offstage, where people like these protagonists liked to keep it.

Chasing Hepburn is not a fast read. Giving American readers a mental image of anything about China has to be a fine art. How accurately Lee does the job is for Chinese-Americans to judge; all I can say is that he's succeeded in producing a book Americans can understand if we read slowly and attentively. The book repays careful reading with vivid adventures, romance, comedy, and some tragedy. If it gets dull, you've been reading too fast and missed something. If you actually want to learn the Chinese words Lee offers on almost every page, one short chapter per day will be a challenge.

Buy it from me here at the usual rate ($5 for the book, $5 for shipping) if you want Lee to earn $1 on each secondhand sale.