Letter from Peking

by Pearl S. Buck

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Elizabeth MacLeod has built a life in China with Gerald, a scholar of mixed Chinese and American ancestry, and their son Rennie. When the war with Japan makes their position dangerous, Gerald sends Elizabeth and Rennie to his family's farm in Vermont while he remains in Beijing. Separation that was intended to be temporary becomes permanent as civil war and Communist victory close the new China to ordinary communication with the United States.

Elizabeth waits for letters that arrive rarely and reveal less than she needs to know. Gerald adapts to a changed political and emotional life in Beijing, while Rennie grows up in America struggling with the part of his identity that others refuse to see as fully American. The novel follows the damage done not by a single betrayal but by borders, race and governments that turn marriage and parenthood into relationships conducted through silence.