Jennifer Cody EPSTEIN

“In this age of memoir and thinly veiled autobiographical fiction, writers who take high dives into deeply imagined waters have become increasingly rare — and valuable. What a pleasure, then, to discover that Jennifer Cody Epstein, whose luminous first novel, “The Painter From Shanghai,” is based on the actual life of Pan Yuliang, a former child prostitute turned celebrated painter, also happens to be one such writer. . .

. . . In an epigraph, Epstein quotes the English painter John Sloane, who wrote that “though a living cannot be made at art, art makes life worth living. It makes starving, living.” In the end, this is precisely what Epstein illustrates in her moving characterization of Pan Yuliang, who even as an abused young girl notes the way a “slap mark glows red at first but fades slowly to peach-pink,” and as an adult, torn between her love for her husband and her desire to be unconstrained as an artist, chooses the nourishment of her work: “She cocks her head ... and starts anew. She paints until the light outside has seeped away into the black sky; until the monks go home and the mourners leave, and all that’s left is the soft click of the gamblers’ ivory.”
-New York Times Book Review

“Epstein’s sweeping debut novel, set in early 20th-century China, fictionalizes the life of Chinese painter Pan Yuliang. Born Xiuquing, she is orphaned at a young age and later sold into prostitution by her uncle, who needs the money to support his opium habit. Renamed Yuliang, she becomes the brothel’s top girl and soon snags the attention of customs inspector Pan Zanhua, who makes her his concubine. Zanhua sets her up in Shanghai, where she enrolls in the Shanghai Art Academy and early on struggles with life study, unable to separate the nude’s monetary value from its value in the “currency of beauty.” She eventually succeeds, winning a scholarship to study in Europe. But when she returns to China, itself inching toward revolution, the conservative establishment is critical of Yuliang, balking as she adopts Western-style dress and becomes known for her nudes (one newspaper deems her work pornography). Simmering resentments hit a flashpoint at a disastrous Shanghai retrospective exhibit, and the fallout nearly destroys Yuliang’s artistic ambition. Convincing historic detail is woven throughout and nicely captures the plight of women in the era. Epstein’s take on Yuliang’s life is captivating to the last line.”
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Fans of Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha and Lisa See’s Snow Flower and The Secret Fan will enjoy this engrossing story of a woman forced to choose between following her heart and pursuing her art.”
-Library Journal (starred review)

“A luminous rendering of a woman whose work was her life.”
-Booklist

"A refreshing telling...non-Chinese-speaking Epstein writes about historical China and the Chinese in a surprisingly authentic way. Her descriptions of brothel life and the landscape of Shanghai, and her rendering of traditional weddings, funerals and foot bindings, makes the book feel like a cross between Zhang Yimou's movies and Chen Yifei's oil paintings."
-South China Morning Post

“An orphan is sold to a brothel by her uncle in prewar China, where she becomes a prostitute, then a concubine, and finally one of the most famous and controversial female artists o her day...This picaresque Shanghai-to-Paris tale delves into the imaginary psyche of the real turn-of-the-century artist Pan Yuliang, who made terribly romantic sacrifices for her art. Epstein's harrowing (and historically accurate) details show that through darkness comes greatness.”
-Marie Claire

“A sparkling debut…lush!”
-Vogue

“[A] sensitive and persuasive telling…one of the most remarkable things about this book is Epstein's imaginative ability to make it all come alive through the precision of detail and evocative image. She manages to convey a sense of the ambience of the period that is at once poetic and steeped in realism.”
-Peter Clothier, The Huffington Post/Buddhadiaries.com

“Quite a good novel, interesting, moving, evocative, and well researched.”
-Asian Review of Books

“Among the new names worth keeping an eye on . ”
-Robert McCrum (literary editor, The London Observer)

Jennifer Cody Epstein has written a historical novel on a grand scale that reads like a fable, a dark love story, a triumphant tale of survival. Pan Yuliang, a girl sold to the mythical, though all too real, degradations of a brothel makes her way to distinction as an artist. From the promise of her first charcoal sketches to the triumphant exhibition in Paris, she is fully realized. Yiliang’s doubt of her talent, her every determination to cross borders--East to West, constraints of gender, art as it attempts to render life —is fully imagined in Epstein’s work. She is as learned in the enchantments of storytelling as she is in the real politics of Chinese and expatriate life.
--Maureen Howard, author of The Silver Screen

The Painter from Shanghai by Jennifer Cody Epstein is an exquisitely rendered tale about the artist’s struggle for self realization. The novel is set primarily in China during the first part of the twentieth century with rumbles of the coming Chinese Revolution. And although character driven, The Painter abounds in plot as our young heroine, Yuliang, moves from one perilous position to another until she achieves in heart’s dream. One could not have a more humble background (orphan, prostitute) than our young heroine, yet it seems that adversity fuels her art. The author relishes her character’s struggle and does not stint on descriptive detail or psychological insight, as the reader comes to understand the heroine’s insecurities as a new painter, and to sympathize with her effort to achieve autonomy despite her love for her powerful and wealthy Chinese husband. This is a magnificent book, a fascinating read.
--Frances Sherwood, author of Night of Sorrows

"What astonishes most about The Painter from Shanghai is not just its epic scale, it's exhaustive research or it's wildly ambitious subject matter, but the fact that Jennifer Cody Epstein has woven these elements together with such lush and inventive writing. This is a phenomenal debut."
--Joanna Hershon, author of Swimming and The Outside of August

"Like Tracy Chevalier did with Girl with a Pearl Earring, Jennifer Cody Epstein has written a truly fascinating and sympathetic portrait of an artist in The Painter from Shanghai. Yuliang’s story is by turns harrowing, passionate, and inspiring. A moving story, and a real page-turner too."
-- Binnie Kirshenbaum, author of An Almost Perfect Moment

"In The Painter from Shanghai, Jennifer Cody Epstein has given us a luminous, compelling debut novel. Yuliang’s story is as captivating as it is chilling, vividly told, hard to put down."
—Helen Schulman, author of A Day at the Beach

Plush and vibrant, Jennifer Cody Epstein's The Painter From Shanghai combines the sweep of an epic with the persuasive, textured detail of daily life. It is a portrait of the artist who succeeds because she insists upon it, a captivating glimpse into history, and-when you least expect it-a gently layered, bittersweet love story.
--Michelle Wildgen , author of You’re Not You

Masterfully told, The Painter from Shanghai offers a brilliant and gripping portrait of one of art history's most fascinating figures. With prose as vivid and luminous as one of her subject’s paintings, Epstein brings to life Pan Yuliang’s incredible saga. At once deeply intimate and sweepingly epic, heart-wrenching and inspiring. I honestly could not put this wonderful novel down. A tremendous achievement. One of the best books I’ve read in years.
--Scott Snyder, author of Voodoo Heart

Jennifer Epstein has created a world of extraordinary imagination out of a world of extraordinary historical fact, and in the process has demonstrated, with verve, that art can redeem misery.

--David Plante, author of ABC

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