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Overview
A novel of searing intelligence and startling originality, Lost in Translation heralds the debut of a unique new voice on the literary landscape. Nicole Mones creates an unforgettable story of love and desire, of family ties and human conflict, and of one woman's struggle to lose herself in a foreign land--only to discover her home, her heart, herself.At dawn in Beijing, Alice Mannegan pedals a bicycle through the deserted streets. An American by birth, a translator by profession, she spends her nights in Beijing's smoke-filled bars, and the Chinese men she so desires never misunderstand her intentions. All around her rushes the air of China, the scent of history and change, of a world where she has come to escape her father's love and her own pain. It is a world in which, each night as she slips from her hotel, she hopes to lose herself forever.
For Alice, it began with a phone call from an American archaeologist seeking a translator. And it ended in an intoxicating journey of the heart--one that would plunge her into a nation's past, and into some of the most rarely glimpsed regions of China. Hired by an archaeologist searching for the bones of Peking Man, Alice joins an expedition that penetrates a vast, uncharted land and brings Professor Lin Shiyang into her life. As they draw closer to unearthing the secret of Peking Man, as the group's every move is followed, their every whisper recorded, Alice and Lin find shelter in each other, slowly putting to rest the ghosts of their pasts. What happens between them becomes one of the most breathtakingly erotic love stories in recent fiction. Indeed, Lost in Translation is a novel about love--between a nation and its past, between a man and a memory, between a father and a daughter. Its powerful impact confirms the extraordinary gifts of a master storyteller, Nicole Mones.
Synopsis
A novel of searing intelligence and startling originality, Lost in Translation heralds the debut of a unique new voice on the literary landscape. Nicole Mones creates an unforgettable story of love and desire, of family ties and human conflict, and of one woman's struggle to lose herself in a foreign land—only to discover her home, her heart, herself.
At dawn in Beijing, Alice Mannegan pedals a bicycle through the deserted streets. An American by birth, a translator by profession, she spends her nights in Beijing's smoke-filled bars, and the Chinese men she so desires never misunderstand her intentions. All around her rushes the air of China, the scent of history and change, of a world where she has come to escape her father's love and her own pain. It is a world in which, each night as she slips from her hotel, she hopes to lose herself forever.
For Alice, it began with a phone call from an American archaeologist seeking a translator. And it ended in an intoxicating journey of the heart—one that would plunge her into a nation's past, and into some of the most rarely glimpsed regions of China. Hired by an archaeologist searching for the bones of Peking Man, Alice joins an expedition that penetrates a vast, uncharted land and brings Professor Lin Shiyang into her life. As they draw closer to unearthing the secret of Peking Man, as the group's every move is followed, their every whisper recorded, Alice and Lin find shelter in each other, slowly putting to rest the ghosts of their pasts. What happens between them becomes one of the most breathtakingly erotic love stories in recent fiction. Indeed, Lost in Translation is a novel about love—between a nation and its past, between a man and a memory, between a father and a daughter. Its powerful impact confirms the extraordinary gifts of a master storyteller, Nicole Mones.
Seattle Times
A pleasurable, observant, and exciting paean for China, its languages, peoples, cultural history and ways of thinking.
Editorials
Lisa See
...[T]hought-provoking, sometimes disturbing and undeniably entertaining...— The New York Times Book Review
Mademoiselle
Impeccable descriptions and perfect dialogue.San Francisco Chronicle
Startling description. . .compelling reading.Seattle Times
A pleasurable, observant, and exciting paean for China, its languages, peoples, cultural history and ways of thinking.Washington Post Book World
Alice Mannegan is a terrific character — edgy, shrewd, deeply wounded. . . .A satisfying romp through alien landscapes: China, the past, and human love.Library Journal
"Enjoyable popular reading that just misses being something more," this is nevertheless a vivid evocation of China, where narrator Alice Mannegan works as an interpreter when she's not sleeping around rather desperately with Chinese men--until, of course, the right one comes along. This hit the Los Angeles and San Francisco Chronicle best sellers lists.— Ronald Ray Ratliff, Chapman High School Library, KS
— Ronald Ray Ratliff, Chapman High School Library, KS
Library Journal
How to flee an oppressively loving father who is also a racist senator? For Alice Mannegan, the answer is to go to China, where she works as an interpreter when she's not sleeping around with Chinese men, trying desperately to embrace all China in the sexual act. Alice doesn't seem to grasp just how much she is hiding from herself, but still she's one smart cookie, which American paleoanthropologist Adam Spenser realizes when he hires her as interpreter for an expedition to track down Peking Man, lost after World War II. On the expedition, Alice launches a real love affair with Dr. Lin Shiyang and finally learns just how wrongheaded her obsession with China, particularly its past, has been.First novelist Mones writes smoothly and conveys a strong sense of China, where she has lived and worked. She also has some good points to make about love, family, and culture, but she doesn't explore them fully, focusing a bit too much on Alice's sexual escapades, which seem unnecessarily tawdry and a bit far-fetched. The Peking Man expedition also seems far-fetched, though it is evidently well researched. -- Barbara Hoffert
Lisa See
...[T]hought-provoking, sometimes disturbing and undeniably entertaining...— The New York Times Book Review
Newsday
An absorbing first novel.The Seattle Times
A pleasurable, observant, and exciting paean for China, its languages, peoples, cultural history and ways of thinking.Kirkus Reviews
A search in China's desert interior for the remains of the Peking Man becomes a compassionate tale of new loves found and old hurts forgiven as an expatriate American woman serves as the group's interpreter. Newcomer Mones asks that nuances and complexities of character carry the narrative, rather than a sequence of sensational acts. All of the people here, minor or major, are subtly shaded: their behavior results from their temperament more than from the diversionary dictates of plot. Thirtyish Alice has been working as an interpreter in Beijing since college, but she hasn't yet found the man to fully understand or appreciate her.She reluctantly accompanies recently divorced American Adam Spencer and two Chinese specialists, Dr. Lin and Dr. Kong, on a search for the remains of Peking Man, rumored to have been hidden by none other than the noted theologian and archeologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Quotes from Teilhard give a wider if sometimes intrusive take on the quest as the quartet conducts a search as riveting as any mystery. But three of the party also have personal issues to confront: Alice's father is a racist congressman whose speech about the young Alice led to a tragedy; Adam feels he's a failure and misses his only son; Lin still loves his wife, who disappeared during the Cultural Revolution. In vividly rendered Chinese settings, Alice, while falling for Lin, learns that her father, whom she loves in spite of his lamentable attitudes, is dying. Meanwhile, Lin—though on the lookout for his erstwhile wife, once a prisoner in the region—gradually finds himself smitten by the American. At story's end, sundry disappointments will be eased by unanticipateddiscoveries.