As with Pearl Buck's most famous 1st novel, The Good Earth, this 2nd book also describes peasant life in rural China about 150 years ago--from a woman's close perspective. Life was gruelingly hard. The people were illiterate, superstitious, uneducated, provincial, the culture entirely male dominated. And yet, this book captures the dignity, pleasures, hopes, fears and dreams shared among villagers despite their extreme poverty, and the influence exerted by women over their families. Themes of love, lust, greed, gambling, chauvinism, narcissism, crime, greed, injustice, tyranny, revolution, abortion, etc., are all masterfully woven into the narrative of one unnamed mother's devotion, without a moment of preaching, in this poignantly beautiful masterpiece. (Summary by Michele Fry, BC and Soloist)