233:, but possessing a quirky innocence and gravitas all its own, the novel is crammed with heady matters, clashes of cultures, ill-considered schemes and unrequited love...Dalton revises conventional assumptions about contemporary China and collective cultural views of love and marriage. This is a noteworthy first novel by a writer to watch."
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English and was eating in a restaurant with other teachers when a local businessman approached and told of his love for a woman on the Chinese mainland and offered $ 10,000 to anyone who would marry her and bring her back. Dalton used this experience as the basis for his novel. It took eight
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in the far northwest of China near the eponymous Heaven Lake and marry the girl, bringing her back to Taiwan where she would be free to marry Mr. Gwa. Vincent refuses but later develops a relationship with one of his young students, which causes him to abandon his faith and to reconsider the offer.
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offers a touching meditation on the vagaries of love. Dalton has an intoxicating ability to infuse simple scenes with considerable depth of human emotion. His characters are richly drawn. His throwaway references are delicate and revealing. In the end,
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said "Sober and searching yet sublimely comic, this impressive debut about a modern-day missionary in Taiwan charts a journey away from reflexive faith and toward a broader understanding of the world and its ways. Reminiscent of the work of
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is a winning novel for the way that Dalton lets his characters fumble and survive moments of choice in a wobbly manner that is recognizably human."
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The story begins in Douliu, Taiwan where
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years to write and he was inspired by a number of writers, among them
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in northwest China which features towards the end of the novel.
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