Homeseeking: A GMA Book Club Pick

At a 99 Ranch Market in Los Angeles, Haiwen reaches for bananas and spots Suchi across the aisle, the first time he has seen her in sixty years. He has recently been widowed, and the sight feels like a second chance. Suchi has lived this long by refusing to look back.

They met in a Shanghai neighborhood when she was seven, drawn by the sound of his violin. Their friendship grew into a deep love. In 1947, Haiwen secretly joined the Nationalist army to keep his brother from being drafted, and Suchi was left with his violin and a note that read Forgive me.

The novel is a historical love story that follows the two across six decades of upheaval in Chinese history. War, famine and the chance of a better life send them apart, to the song halls of Hong Kong, the military encampments of Taiwan, New York and California.

The structure runs in two directions. Haiwen's story moves from the present back into the past, while Suchi's moves from her childhood forward to the present, and the two lines meet at the center.

Haiwen keeps his memories close, and Suchi makes herself face only forward. Both still carry a sense of home. The book is epic in scope and personal in focus, built around family, sacrifice and loyalty, and it asks what a single choice costs over a lifetime.