San Francisco ghostwriter Ruth Young finally begins to understand her Alzheimer's-afflicted mother LuLing's preoccupation with ghosts and curses when she reads Luling's writings of her dark backwoods childhood in 1920s China--where LuLing's mute, disfigured nursemaid committed suicide, and a nearby cave held what may have been the bones of the lost ancient hominid Peking Man.
Chinese American families--Fiction. Chinese American women--Fiction. Mothers and daughters--Fiction. Women immigrants--Fiction. Women--China--Fiction. Chinese American families--Fiction. Chinese American women--Fiction. Domestic fiction. Immigrants--Fiction. Mother-daughter relationship--Fiction. Women--China--Fiction.