The Washington Post
The memoir is a fascinating look at unhealthy family dynamics: a wife who resents her husband's blind devotion to his mother, grandchildren who begrudge their grandmother the sacrifices she forced on them, and a grandmother who blatantly favors her son and eldest grandson. But this tale isn't just about Huang's family. Vignettes of scrounging for food when rations were scarce and forcing tears at school when Mao died so no one would question Huang's allegiance to communism provide insight into the cultural landscape of China in the tumultuous 1970s.
—Sarah Halzack
Publishers Weekly
In his illuminating memoir, translator and freelance writer Huang chronicles growing up in central China during the 1970s. Weaving Chinese history and culture into his recollections, Huang reveals a family striving to fulfill a grandmother’s last wish during a period of rapid societal change. At 72, Huang’s grandmother became obsessed with her own death. She cajoled her family into promising they would bury rather than cremate her, a troublesome prospect for the family. The Communists, who insisted on cremation, had outlawed traditional Chinese burials. “Grandma’s request presented a dilemma for Father, who felt obligated to give grandma the burial she wanted but feared for his political future.” For the next 15 years, the family strained under the burden of the personal and financial issues involved while keeping their plans from curious authorities. Huang’s story intersects with the country’s sweeping political changes. The food rationing system was relaxed; cultural life blossomed; TV replaced radio as the main form of information and entertainment; and transportation improved. Huang studied English at a foreign language school, followed by studies in London. “Years of Communist education became like the ancient artifacts,” Huang writes. Huang’s coming-of-age story eloquently describes his family coping with change and how, in a turbulent time, he made sense of the world. (Mar.)
From the Publisher
A gripping, lyrical memoir . . . revealing, ironic, and effortlessly elegant.”
—Chicago Tribune
“There is no overstating the profound effect of the Cultural Revolution on the lives of every single Chinese, and the Huang family’s struggles to bury their grandma is a heartrending example…perfect, moving.”
—The Daily Beast
“Lively…inspires as many laughs as it does tears.”
—The New Yorker
“Fascinating”
—The Washington Post
“A memoir centered on a coffin? Yes, and it works.”
—O, The Oprah Magazine
“A riveting, well-crafted story… at times comic and at times heartbreaking… there are plenty of fresh and unforgettable revelations.”
—Oprah.com
“An interesting look at China through the lens of family.”—
New York Post
“Powerful…poignant.”
—Chicagoist
“Mesmerizing and lyrical.”
—New Jersey Star-Ledger
“New and refreshing and adds a different perspective into the canon of immigrant literature.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
“Illuminating… Huang’s coming-of-age story eloquently describes his family coping with change and how, in a turbulent time, he made sense of the world.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A trenchantly observed story that depicts the clash of traditional and modern Chinese culture with a powerful combination of sensitivity and mordant irony.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“[Huang’s] description of life under Mao will come as a revelation to readers.”
—Booklist
“Another interesting way to look at China, something readers crave.”
—Library Journal
"The Little Red Guard is a remarkable memoir. Wenguang Huang gave it an ingenious dramatic structure, which reveals the tensions and emotional struggles within his family. At the psychological level, the story has some universal resonance that is beyond history and culture. Huang tells it with extraordinary candor, acuity, and the cruel irony of life. As a result, the story is full of gravity, absurdity, and grief."
–Ha Jin, author of Waiting
“The Little Red Guard—his first book—establishes Wenguang Huang as a master story-teller. Vividly engaging and often surprising, this memoir of coming of age in an ordinary Chinese family amid the social and political wreckage of Mao's Cultural Revolution is uncommonly wise and deeply moving.”
–Philip Gourevitch, author of The Ballad of Abu Ghraib
“With brilliant humanistic insights, Wenguang Huang reveals how the terrors of youth, both large and small, imprint our lives with psychic markers and force us, eventually, to confront the irrational foundation on which strong character can be found.”
—Patrick Tyler, author of A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China
“Although Wenguang Huang came to the West years ago from China, memories of his native country still resonate. Through his writing, time reverses itself, and the ghosts from his past have been revived, like falling leaves returning to their roots. Just as he has done in his translated works, Wen has transformed the intimate stories of a Chinese family into a gripping book that will appeal to readers of all cultures.”
—Liao Yiwu, author of Corpse Walker – Real Life Stories: China from the Bottom Up
Library Journal
Huang's grandmother wanted not to be cremated but buried, a practice banned by China's government as backward-looking. Huang's father finally built her a coffin and appointed the author (at age eight) to be its guardian. Now a Chicago-based translator, writer, and NPR commentator, Huang began reflecting on how his coffin guarding and his family's 15-year-long focus on his grandmother's death must have shaped his life. Yet another interesting way to look at China, something readers crave.
DECEMBER 2012 - AudioFile
Wenguang Huang’s grandmother’s fear of being cremated after her death became a major focal point for the Huang family, who sought to honor her wish to be buried, although the practice of burial, as a traditional Chinese custom, had been outlawed by the Communist regime. Obtaining a coffin, preparing burial items, and hiding the evidence from the authorities became a source of discord between her obedient son and the rest of his family, who would often go without for the sake of the grandmother’s wishes. Adam Verner’s performance is calm and measured, conveying a suitable tone for a memoirist who is exploring his family relations and the political and social situation in China in the 1970s. The narration is understated yet quietly engaging. S.E.G. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
Writer and translator Wenguang Huang's candid memoir about growing up in the turbulent aftermath of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. In 1973, Mao's ruthless political campaign sought to bring an end to all "decadent" traditional practices. But the author would remember the year for a different reason--it was a time when his 71-year-old grandmother "became obsessed with death." Afraid that she would be cremated and rendered unable to reunite with her dead husband in the afterlife, she made her son, Wenguang Huang's father, promise that he would give her a traditional burial. Her son agreed and built a coffin, knowing that if he was discovered, the Communist Party would punish him and his family for disobedience. He made the author the official "coffin keeper." For the next nine years, he dutifully slept near what the family would refer to as Grandma's "longevity wood." In the end, the coffin really did become a kind of longevity talisman because the grandmother would live to be 87. Throughout the 16 years leading up to her death, the family often became embroiled in bitter battles over how they would inter the grandmother, who demanded a traditional Chinese burial next to her husband, whose grave was far from the family home. The one family member who suffered the most was the author's father, who passed away a year before his mother. A "filial son," he had made his mother's obsession his own, to the point where it "sucked him dry until there was nothing left but his own corpse." A trenchantly observed story that depicts the clash of traditional and modern Chinese culture with a powerful combination of sensitivity and mordant irony.
