THENEWYORKER,NOVEMBER25, 2019 73
BRIEFLY NOTED
Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister, by Jung Chang (Knopf ).
Famed for their marriages to leading political figures, the
three Soong sisters were born in Shanghai in the late nine-
teenth century, and were among the first Chinese women to
be educated in America. Ching-ling married Sun Yat-sen,
whose revolution overthrew the Qing dynasty; May-ling
married Sun’s successor, Chiang Kai-shek; and Ei-ling mar-
ried a finance minister in Chiang’s Nationalist government.
This richly researched history shows how these cosmopoli-
tan, headstrong women exploited their proximity to power.
Ching-ling’s support for the Communists, who eventually
defeated the Nationalists in a civil war, left a permanent rift
in the family. She had long despised Chiang for reasons both
ideological and personal.The Season, by Kristen Richardson (Norton). Sharply observed
and oddly timely, this history of the débutante ball explores
a ritual whose social and historical significance has often
been overlooked. From its earliest days, in the court of Eliz-
abeth I, through its nineteenth-century zenith, the custom
formalized a marketplace in which families brokered their
fortunes through a daughter’s marriage. Although such balls
evolved into elaborate élitist rites, they were not limited to
the white upper crust. Richardson delves into a variety of
fascinating deb scenes, including African-American tradi-
tions dating back to Reconstruction. Her focus throughout
is on the experience of the women, who even today are asked
to embody a complex set of conflicting ideals.The Factory, by Hiroko Oyamada, translated from the Japanese
by David Boyd (New Directions). So vast that navigating it re-
quires maps and shuttle buses, the Japanese factory at the
heart of this novel contains a forest, a lake, and fauna unique
to its ecosystem. The plot follows three new hires: a young
woman who has quit several jobs and now works shredding
documents; a recently fired engineer who proofreads inter-
nal papers; and a university researcher tasked with green-
roofing the facilities. They are ambivalent toward their work
but also wonder if perhaps they’re lucky to have jobs at all.
In Oyamada’s bleak world, our work creates a sense of isola-
tion that grows as routines develop. In quiet exasperation, the
characters start to ask themselves not what they do for the
factory but what the factory does to them.Atopia, by Sandra Simonds ( Wesleyan). An epic consecrating
empire’s end, rather than its origins, this book-length poem
sings of the absurdities, inanities, and injustices that pervade
modern life. “This is not a dystopia, it’s wreckage,” the speaker,
a single mother living in Florida, proclaims. Fevered and phil-
osophical, Simonds’s fierce lyric rages against capitalism and
patriarchy for stifling compassion and collective imagination:
“the political necessity of cruelty/in its new authoritarian vi-
sion/working itself into the fabric/of our daily punch card
bread.” Eclectic diction and a fluid use of form evince a rest-
less mind that refuses to compartmentalize or to be contained.who navigated the internal needs of their
communities, established tributary and
protectorate relationships with nearby
communities, and negotiated diplomatic
relations with outsiders. When the Pil-
grims encountered Ousamequin, they
were meeting a paramount sachem, a
Massasoit, who commanded the respect
necessary to establish strategy for other
groups in the region.
The Pilgrims were not the only Eu-
ropeans the Wampanoags had come
across. The first documented contact
occurred in 1524, and marked the start
of a century of violent encounters, cap-
tivity, and enslavement. By 1620, the
Wampanoags had had enough, and were
inclined to chase off any ship that sought
to land. They sent a French colonizing
mission packing and had driven the Pil-
grims away from a previous landing site,
on the Cape. Ousamequin’s people de-
bated for months about whether to ally
with the newcomers or destroy them.
When they decided to begin diplomacy,
they were guided by Tisquantum (you
may recall him as Squanto) and Epe-
now, New England natives who had
been captured, held in bondage in Brit-
ain, and trained as interpreters by the
English before eventually finding their
way back across the Atlantic.
Why would Ousamequin decide to
welcome the newcomers and, in 1621,
make a mutual-defense pact with them?
During the preceding years, an epidemic
had struck Massachusetts Bay Indians,
killing between seventy-five and ninety
per cent of the Wampanoag and the
Massachusett people. A rich landscape
of fields and gardens, tended hunting
forests, and fishing weirs was largely
emptied of people. Belief systems
crashed. Even survival did not mean
good health, and, with fields unplanted
and animals uncaught, starvation fol-
lowed closely behind. The Pilgrims’ set-
tlement took place in a graveyard.
Wampanoag people consolidated their
survivors and their lands, and reëstab-
lished internal self-governance. But, to
the west, the Narragansetts—traditional
rivals largely untouched by the epi-
demic—now outnumbered the Wampa-
noags, and that led to the strengthening
of Ousamequin’s alliances with the sur-
viving Massachusett and another nearby
group, the Nipmucks. As the paramount
sachem, he also had to contend with