Raise the Red Lantern

The brutal realities of the dark places Su Tong depicts in this collection of novellas set in 1930s provincial China -- worlds of prostitution poverty and drug addiction -- belie his prose of stunning and simplebeauty. The title novella Raise the Red Lantern which became a critically acclaimed film tells the story of Lotus a young woman whose father''s suicide forces her to become the concubine of a wealthy merchant. Crushed by loneliness despair and cruel treatment Lotus finds her descent into insanity both a weapon and a refuge.Nineteen Thirty-Four Escapes is an account of a family''s struggles during one momentous year; plagued by disease death and the shady promise of life in a larger town the family slowly disintegrates.Finally Opium Family details the last years of a landowning clan whose demise is brought about by corruption lust and treachery -- fruits of the insidious crop they harvest.