Rebellion: A Novel

Written by Molly Patterson

Narrated by Angela Dawe and Nan McNamara

Reminiscent of Elizabeth Strout and Jane Smiley, Rebellion is a powerful debut novel by Molly Patterson, weaving together the stories of four women unafraid to challenge the boundaries of their lives, spanning generations and taking readers across the globe.

In 1890, a young missionary, Addie, has traveled to the town of Lu-cho Fu with her husband, dreaming of making her mark on the world. But Addie’s desires change after meeting a brash and thoroughly modern woman, Poppy, who offers to transform Addie’s destiny. All the while, letters from Addie reach her sister Louisa back home, recently married and struggling with the quiet isolation of being a farmer’s wife. When violence erupts overseas between the Chinese and their unwelcome Christian intruders, Addie’s life takes a mysterious and haunting turn strongly felt by her sister, Louisa, back home.

By 1958, Louisa’s daughter Hazel is fighting to maintain control of her land and family in the aftermath of her husband’s untimely death. Reeling from the tragedy, she finds herself drawing closer to the neighboring Hughes family and in the process learns that grief takes on many forms.

One hundred years after Addie’s disappearance, Juanlan returns to her hometown with no job and no options. She finds her father ailing and her pregnant sister-in-law restless and angry. While her family and town are rapidly changing, Juanlan feels frozen in place. In search of an outlet for the live wire she feels buried inside, she starts up a love affair with a married man.

Interconnected by action and consequence, each woman’s tale brilliantly displays the fleeting intensity of youth, the obligation of family, and the dramatic consequence of charting your own destiny. A vibrant story of compassion and discovery set against a century of complicated relations between China and America, Rebellion celebrates those who fight against expectation in pursuit of their own thrilling fate, and introduces a rising literary star.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Aug 8, 2017
• ISBN: 9780062683601

Molly Patterson

Molly Patterson was born in St. Louis and lived in China for several years. The winner of a 2014 Pushcart Prize, she was also the 2012-2013 writer-in-residence at St. Albans School in Washington, DC. Her work has appeared in several magazines, including the Atlantic and the Iowa Review. Rebellion is her first novel.

Reviews for Rebellion

[lauriebrown54 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Four women in four eras are at the center of this book. A Christian missionary, Addie, in China in the years leading up to the Boxer Rebellion; Louisa, Addie’s sister who left a middle class family to homestead in the middle of nowhere; Hazel, Louisa’s granddaughter who is suddenly left a widow with a farm to run; and Juanlan, a young Chinese woman who as just graduated college but has to return home to help care for her father. Each of these women steps outside the life that is expected of them, and of course has to live with the consequences of those quiet rebellions. The book moves at a pretty slow pace. The minutia of daily life is related- when the rebellions are quiet, one has to look at the ordinary to see it contrast with the extraordinary. The descriptions are brilliant; they bring the scenes to life. But… pretty slow. It rather reminds me of a novel from the late 18th century, actually, with its pacing and long descriptions. Which is fine; just be forewarned. What I didn’t like was that I figured the four strands of narrative would come together in the end. It was obvious what the relationships between Addie, Louisa, and Hazel were, but the relationship that Juanlan has with the three of them is quite nebulous- only that she lives in roughly the same area of China that Addie lived in. I expected that at some point some long hidden letters would appear or something that meshed them all. No such luck. The ended was quite a letdown.