Luck of the Titanic by Stacey Lee

It's April 10, 1912 and Valora Luck is waiting at the first class gangway to board the White Star's newest ocean line, Titanic. Valora's former employer, Mrs. Sloane had secretly purchased the tickets for them without telling her grasping son and his wife. However, she died suddenly over a week ago and Valora's here now, taking her place.

Dressed in one of Mrs. Sloane's traveling suits, Valora is determined to board Titanic to find and reunite with her twin brother Jamie Luck. He is one of seven Chinese men from the Atlantic Steam Company being transported to Cuba to take on a new job.

Despite her ticket, Valora is refused entry because she is half Chinese. The Chinese Exclusion Act bars Chinese from entering America. Valora lies and tells the officer her lady is expecting her, but to no avail.

Undaunted, Valora manages to board Titanic by hiding underneath a Renault being hoisted into the ship's hold. When Valora is seen climbing out of the hold by a crewman, she is reported to Officer Merry. Luckily she is saved by a Miss Hart who distracts the officer, allowing Valora to concentrate on finding Jamie.

Valora knows from the late Mrs. Sloane's list of passengers, that Mr. Albert Ankeny Stewart, part owner of the Ringling Brothers Circus is on board. Her plan is to find Jamie, convince him to do the routine they choregraphed with Ba months ago for Mr. Stewart and get hired.

Valora is able to find Jamie's cabin, but the Chinese sailors don't trust her and offer no help. However, as she wanders through the ship, Valora stumbles upon Jamie who she finds helping Miss Charlotte Fine with her poodle. Jamie is with two young Chinese boys, Olly and Wink and a young Chinese man, Chow Bo Wah who works as a fireman on Titanic. Valora tells Jamie about her plan for them to go to New York and become circus performers by impressing Mr. Stewart. But Jamie isn't interested and he reminds Valora that he doesn't want to go to America and that it's illegal for them to do so.

Jamie's attitude makes Valora angry but determined. Tired, she makes her way to B-Deck and when confusion arises over the room that Mrs. Sloane would have occupied, Valora is offered a beautiful stateroom after identifying herself as Mrs. Amberly Sloane. With Mrs. Sloane's dress and her face covered by a veil of bees lace, Valora has created the perfect disguise.

As the ship leaves Cherbourg, Valora finds herself settling into her new role when April Hart knocks on her door. April knows who she is and makes Valora the offer of having her wear her own creations from House of July, her haute couture fashion label. At first she refuses but April reveals that she knows exactly who Valora is and suggests they can help each other. She tells Valora she could be the "Merry Widow" and "the mysterious woman in mourning" and that she can help her hide in first class. Valora agrees to model April's outfits in exchange for her finding out about Mr.Stewart. Now all she needs to do is convince Jamie to perform their act for Mr. Stewart so they can start their new life in America. 

Discussion

With Luck of the Titanic, New York Times best-selling author Stacey Lee has crafted another riveting novel for teen readers. She has taken the well known and much written about historical event of the sinking in 1912 of the White Star ocean liner, Titanic and focused in on the little known fact that there were eight Chinese passengers on board the ship. Six of the Chinese survived and sadly these men were shamed for surviving. 

With this detail as her foundation, Lee has created a believable and moving story. The challenge, when using a historical event like the Titanic in which the outcome is well known, is to write a good, plausible story with believable fictional characters whose fate is not known to the reader. Lee accomplishes this remarkably well. Also, as she notes in her Author's Further Note at the back, "The challenge of writing historical fiction lies in creating a fictional story within the confines of the historical record without doing to much damage in the process." Lee has remained faithful to the events of the Titanic disaster while also educating her readers on the discrimination so prevalent against the Chinese, that there was a specific law barring them from entering America and that their efforts to survive the disaster were considered dishonourable and shameful.

In Luck of the Titanic, the main character, Valora Luck is posing as her recently deceased employer, the wealthy Mrs. Amberly Sloane. Valora initially planned to board Titanic as Mrs. Sloane's maid but when that attempt fails she manages to sneak onto the ship - perhaps the most implausible part of the entire story. Her goal is to find her brother Jamie whom she knows is on the ship working on the boilers. Valora wants to go to America and begin a new life there as a circus performer and part of the act she and her brother developed as Valor and Virtue. Jamie is simply not interested in Valora's idea, although he eventually decides to help her. Their plans are never realized as the ship strikes the iceberg and begins to sink. 

However, before the tragedy, Valora comes to realize that what she thinks is best for her might not be the right thing for Jamie. This realization in the cabin of Mr. Stewart of Ringling Bros. comes at the exact moment the Titanic strikes the iceberg. "Life is a balancing act, and the better you get a juggling, the better you get at living. But juggling is not an act of holding tight. It's an act of letting go -- of giving the people you love the time and space to find their own orbit. And it's an act of catching. I'll always be there for Jamie, just as he'll always be there for me." And so Valora makes a deal that works for both her and Jamie, giving him the freedom to live his life as he chooses, not as she wishes. And as it turns out that is for the best as the tragedy of the sinking unfolds.

One contentious detail in the novel is whether Valora would be able to move so easily about on Titanic between first class and the quarters where the Chinese crew are housed. Lee does add a touch of realism to this as Valora's true identity is eventually revealed.

Lee also makes use of considerable foreshadowing in the novel through Valora's dreams and also with the gift of the carved whale that Bo gives Valora. When questioned as to why a whale, Bo tells her, "A whale rules the sea. It goes where it wants without fear. And if troubled, it can become a bird --he flaps his hands, his long fingers moving gracefully -- "beating wings hard enough to stir up the sea. It means being in control of your destiny."

The novel's gorgeous cover is sure to draw readers in but Titanic is so overdone in novels, that the theme may be off putting for some readers. Those that do take up the challenge however, will find an enjoyable, well-crafted story with a very bittersweet ending. The novel includes a List of Characters in her novel and maps of the layout of the R.M.S. Titanic. 

Book Details:

Luck of the Titanic by Stacey Lee
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons        2021
366 pp.

Someday We Will Fly by Rachel DeWoskin

May 17, 1940 was the last time fifteen-year-old Lillia Kazka saw her parents perform at the Stanislav Circus in Warsaw. Their gravity-defying performance came to a crashing end when the secret circus performance was raided by German soldiers. In the confusion, Lillia's father grabbed her and her baby sister Naomi and raced back to their apartment on Zgoda Street. Lillia heard her mother's scream but she was not with them when they fled. Now Lillia, her father and her younger sister wait, certain that she will return.

When morning comes and Lillia's mother doesn't return, her father decides to return to the circus offices to see if he can learn what has happened. Lillia and her father are "wild with fear". In two days they are planning to drive to Lithuania where they will take a ship to Shanghai. Lillia is left to mind her one-and-a half-year-old sister, her parents' "surprise baby" who is not like other babies and who cannot crawl or walk yet.

Her father returns, without any word of what has happened to his wife, Alenka. He tells Lillia that they must leave the next day but that they will leave word with friends in the hopes that she will follow them.This deeply upsets Lillia who wants to stay and find her mother. The next day, Lillia, her father and Naomi drive to Lithuania where they catch the train to Trieste, Italy. On May 23, their ship the Conte Rosso departs Trieste for Shanghai. During their thirty-six day journey, they will pass Venice, Brindisi, Port Said, the Suez Canal, Massowah, Aden, Colombo, Penang, Singapore, and Hong Kong before arriving in Shanghai.

One day on the ship Lillia is approached by a woman who offers to buy her hair. Reluctant at first, Lillia later agrees after she learns her father has sold his wedding ring so that they will have more money when they arrive in Shanghai. The final two weeks of their voyage, Lillia is sick and feverish.  After her father carries her and Naomi off the ship, they board a truck from the Jewish service that takes them to a Heime, a shelter. In the Heime, there are Jews from all over Europe. They meet Joshua Michener, a banker who know is a barber and his wife, Taube who used to be a science teacher.

Out on the streets of Shanghai, Lillia notices soldiers carrying bayonets. Her papa explains that for the past three years, China has been occupied by Japan. Lillia recognizes that Germany and Japan are working together. With the arrival of summer, Shanghai experiences overwhelming heat and severe flooding. Lillia continues practicing headstands and doing the exercises her mother did to keep herself strong.

Lillia and her family move to a room in a three-storey house at 54 Ward Road. Mr. Michener and Taube also move in with them. Also living in the house is Gabriel Eber, a man they met at Wayside Park. In the fall, Lillia begins school, attending the Kadoorie School. There she meets another girl from Poland, Biata and two American girls, Sally Miller and Rebecca Rosen. Rebecca, who is very well off and who lives in the International Settlement, attempts to befriend Lillia. However, Lillia is reluctant because she is so poor and lives in HongKou with the very poor Polish Jews and the Chinese from the rural areas outside of Shanghai.

Eventually it seems that life for Lillia and her family is settling down. Naomi begins to speak and learns to walk and Lillia gradually becomes friends with Rebecca, attending a Girl Guides meeting at her home and going camping with the group. But when her father and Naomi become desperately ill, Lillia must make some difficult choices, ones that could put her in danger. And when war comes to Shanghai after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, life becomes  a desperate struggle for survival amidst grinding poverty and fear. But an unexpected event gives Lillia and her father hope to continue on, in spite of all this.

Discussion

Someday We Will Fly is set during World War II in Shanghai, China. Most readers will know at least a little background about the years prior to World War II but most will not know about events going on in other parts of the world during the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism in Germany.

Prior to World War II, the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan were engaged in a series of conflicts. The Japanese had invaded Manchuria in 1931 and then attacked Shanghai in 1932. However, in July of 1937, the Japanese invaded China. The two nations waged a brutal battle for the city of Shanghai from July to November of 1937.Although the Chinese were poorly equipped, they fought valiantly, but lost to the superior Japanese. The city was now occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army.  After the Battle of Shanghai, it was possible to enter the city without a visa or a passport. This made Shanghai an idea destination for the Jews in Europe, who were facing escalating  persecution and who were being refused visas by almost every country in the world.

Ashkenazi Jews ( Jews from Eastern Europe) began arriving in 1933, their numbers drastically increasing as the Nazis tightened their grip on Austria, Poland and Germany. As Lillia and her family did in the novel, many traveled via luxury ships from ports in Italy to Shanghai. However, the city of Shanghai was not prepared to receive a sudden influx of refugees in such a short period of time. As a result food was scarce and illnesses in the impoverished Hongkuo District, where many of the European Jews settled were rampant.

DeWoskin effectively captures the extreme poverty and hardship Lillia and her family faced during the war years. Lillia is often ravenously hungry and DeWoskin incorporates many descriptions of Lillia's struggles to find food and to not show those around her just how hungry she really is. When she returns home one day after school and smells meat, her response is both visceral and intense. "I smelled meat. My mind turned red and ravenous. I imagined stalking an animal, digging my teeth into its raw flesh." At Rebecca's home, tea time is overwhelming, filling her with unrealistic ideas. "I took a single sandwich, but my mind buzzed, swarming with plans to fill my pockets, to pour tea into my clothes and squeeze it back out for Naomi at 54 Ward." Despite these intense feelings, Lillia retains her social graces and her decorum.

DeWoskin's evocative prose, rich with imagery, allows the reader to fully experience the many emotions Lillia feels as she struggles to keep her family alive in the ruins of Shanghai. Early on Lillia attempts to comfort herself by focusing on words and colours. "I kept track of colors: Shanghai was tan, gold, green, and sometimes red, especially at night. Water was every shade but blue. Japanese planes turned the air metallic, chopped clouds into patches intersected by lines."  DeWoskin captures the essence of all that Lillia and her family and the other Jews in Shanghai experience, impressing upon the reader just how difficult life was for the Jewish refugees during the war.

As well as the realistic portrayal of hardship, poverty, suffering and death, Someday We Will Fly is also a story of resiliency, self-sacrifice, courage and hope. At great cost to herself, Lillia becomes a dancer and a dinner escort at the night club Magnifique in order to save her father and her younger sister Naomi from starvation. She uses her circus skills to save herself from a more ruinous fate in the night club. And in spite of all the trials, the novel manages a hopeful ending. Lillia's mother finds her way to their family in Shanghai after her own horrible experience and Lillia is able to stage her own puppet show that chronicles her family's journey. She is able to imagine her life going forward.

DeWoskin was inspired to write this novel after two photographs at the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum caught her attention. The photographs of Jewish refugee children in Shanghai "seemed iconic of how human beings save each other and our children" Through her main character, Lillia Kaczka-Varsh, DeWoskin was able to explore many questions, such as "...how human beings survive the chaos of war,  ...how can children come of age in circumstances as unnurturing as those of occupied cities?" and "How do we manage to hold on to the possibility of hope, even when we feel the constant pulse of its twin force, dread?" To try to answer these questions in the form of a historical fiction novel, Rachel DeWoskin, who had spent six summers living in Shanghai, did considerable research both in the city itself and in talking with several surviving Shanghai Jewish refugees. She walked through areas of the city that Lillia would have lived in during the war, she lived in an apartment in the Embankment Building which served as the processing center and shelter for the Jewish refugees, imagining what Shanghai was like in the 1940s and what life was like there. The relationship between Lillia and Wei, between European and Chinese would have been unlikely but possible, although it would have been frowned upon.

Someday We Will Fly will appeal to those readers who enjoy historical fiction and wish to read a novel with an unusual setting and and interesting and unique main character. In addition to the Author's Note at the back of the book, DeWoskin offers an extensive Sources Consulted list as well.

Book Details:

Someday We Will Fly by Rachel DeWoskin
New York: Viking            2019
353 pp.