Su Chang's ​The Immortal Woman

Reviewed by ​Mona Angéline

(House of Anansi Press, 2025)

​I thoroughly enjoyed Su Chang’s debut novel, The Immortal Woman —a generational saga set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution and its aftermath. It is a beautiful exploration of personal conflict at the intersection of family, politics, and culture, seen through the eyes of two remarkable women, Lemei and her daughter Lin.
 
The novel alternates between the perspectives of Lemei, a former Red Guard turned disillusioned journalist, and Lin, her daughter, who moves to North America in search of the life her mother dreamed of for her.
 
Leimei’s story unfolds in 1960’s Shanghai, where she is initially a student leader for the Red Guard movement. Soon, her faith in her country is shattered as she witnesses the harsh realities of political oppression. Lemei’s inner conflict seems to mirror the greater turmoil of modern China. Her journey from zealous revolutionary to a woman broken by her country’s propaganda and her role in it is a key aspect of the book. This leads Lemei to raise her daughter Lin with one clear ambition: to escape the constraints of China and build a life in the West, without the suffocating constraints that defined Lemei’s youth.
 
But the complex realities of Western life fall short of providing fulfillment. In North America, Lin struggles as an immigrant on the one hand, and with her own identity on the other. Hearing of her mother’s romanticized view of the West in phone calls from far away, yet living with a deep-seated inferiority complex shaped by years of internalized Western ideals, leads to a significant internal conflict. As readers, we feel for her as she moves through a heartbreaking depression—in her education, her career and her love life. Lin came to the West to execute “Ma’s Grand Plan,” ultimately resulting in a backlash of generational tension between the two.
 
In her writing, Chang artfully avoids a simplistic polarity between China and the West, instead showing the complexities of both. The intense nationalism and state-controlled media of China during the Cultural Revolution are put in contrast with the alienating and flawed reality of Western life. Both worlds, in their own ways, are shown to be restrictive and potentially soul-erasing, yet both also offer moments of understanding. I loved Chang’s honesty in describing the West. A Chinese classmate of Lin’s remarks: “You turn on the TV every morning and see the clowns talking, the cults and fake gods, the obscene rich and abject poor, the school carnage . . . this is supposed to be the pinnacle of human civilization?”
 
I think Chang’s debut is so compelling because it captures with such nuance the contradictions within both its characters and its broader political and cultural themes. The mother-daughter relationship is as complicated as it is universal. We understand Lemei’s motivations as a mother, wanting a better life for her daughter, but we also feel the deep pain of Lin’s struggle to carve out a life that is uniquely hers. I loved how the author was able to capture the frustration of both women without casting one as the antagonist who hinders the other.
 
I also truly loved Chang’s dreamy, quietly stunning prose. She has an innate ability to weave together sharp political commentary with deeply human emotions. The book lingered with me for a long time after reading it. I think as a citizen of a country formerly belonging to Nazi Germany, I relate because I carry my own historical and generational shame through life, even after having emigrated to North America. Through the eyes of many Chinese friends and my own temporary residence there, I can attest that this is a story universal to the Chinese-American heritage, and likely carries weight for readers from many other cultures.
 
Thank you, Su Chang, for this beautiful masterpiece. What an impressive and thought-provoking story to have published as a debut novel. 

In gratitude to the author and House of Anansi for the Advance Reader’s Copy.

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Mona Angéline is an unapologetically vulnerable artist, athlete, and scientist. She honors the creatively unconventional, the authentically "other." She shares her emotions because the world tends to hide theirs. She is a new writer. Her work has been accepted for publication in a number of magazines—see more here.