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In a fit of jealousy, Xiao Yanqiu, star of The Moon Opera, disfigures her understudy with boiling water. Spurned by the troupe, she turns to teaching. Twenty years later The Moon Opera is restaged, under the patronage of a rich local factory boss, who insists that Xiao Yanqiu return to the role of Chang'e. So she does, this time believing she is the immortal moon goddess. Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Peking Opera, this devastating portrait shows the extent to which a desperate woman will flee earthly concerns. The reader finds himself easily drawn into the very coded universe of Chinese opera, and experiences a medley of feelings, from curiosity to a growing feeling of scorn, compassion and pity for the heroine … A real moment of pleasure.' Asia News This tiny, perfect novel concerns the hermetic world of traditional Peking Opera. Xiao Yanqi, exquisite star of a cursed piece called The Moon Opera , ruins her career by throwing boiling water in the face of her understudy. Twenty years later, a cigarette factory owner pays for the return of his idol. Wearing the water sleeves' of the Moon Goddess tips Xiaou into crazed mourning for her lost youth. There are distant echoes of All About Eve – the young goddess must always usurp the old.' The Times ** ### From Publishers Weekly A peerless singer in the Peking Opera is ruined by her jealousy of her understudy in this vividly sketched tale of art and money by Chinese screenwriter (*Shanghai Triad*) and novelist Feiyu. In 1979, 20 years before the novel takes place, the actress Xiao Yanqiu debuted brilliantly and memorably as the lead in *The Moon Opera*, although she soon wrecked her career when she attacked her understudys teacher in a fit of rage at sharing the spotlight. Now 40, unhappily married and overweight, Xiao is offered the chance to reprise her role in a new production bankrolled by a factory owner and former fan. Xiao, who assumes the role to perfection, chooses as her understudy a gifted student, Chunlai, who postpones a TV career for the promise of the stage. The scene is set for a terrible showdown, naturally, complicated by the clash between art and money, as exemplified by the crass interests of the factory owner. The novels slimness, simple storytelling and overarching morality lend it a fable-like air, with Xiao filling the role of its tormented star. *(Jan.)* Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. ### From Booklist *Starred Review* This slender novel on a rather narrow topic nevertheless resonates with a clear, crystalline bell tone. The Chinese author, in his first novel, brings his admirably, even stunningly, precise and effortlessly metaphoric style to bear (“That slip of paper was a sigh from the wind”) on one aspect of Chinese culture that has transcended the change in regimes over the centuries: the Peking opera. As we, in fascination, observe here, the Peking opera is a tightly ritualized, tradition-bound art form, and the more nuanced and subtle the performance, the more highly regarded the performer. The novel’s conceit is that a wealthy factory owner is prepared to endow a new production of The Moon Opera, which has not been performed for two decades; however, the factory owner’s stipulation is that the production must star the lead female singer who performed it previously. She, though, has essentially retired from the stage and is now a singing teacher. The story, then, becomes the story of this prima donna’s attempt to recapture the role and her former fame, and what she learns about her true legacy to the Peking opera. At once a sad and lovely story. --Brad Hooper