This is the simple story of a Chinese woman named Lalu Nathoy who lived from 1853 to 1933. It is called a biographical memoir but is written as historical fiction. The author has kept the essential story of Lalu's life, who is later known as Polly Bemis, as accurate as possible but has added a few fictitious characters to enhance the story.

Lalu's story begins when she is 13 years old and lives on a poor farm in Northern China. When she is born her father calls her his "thousand pieces of gold" because she is so valuable to him. In the hope that some day she will marry above her station, her feet are bound. When famine strikes, her father loses all his savings in a gamble to lease more land and plant winter wheat. He wanted to make a lot of money, but the rains wash away his crops. Lalu's feet binding must be reversed so she can help out in the fields - something a woman never does. Things become so desperate with no food that her father is forced to sell her to a gang of marauding bandits for two small bags of seed. She escapes but is recaptured.

Eventually the bandits sell her to a brothel owner in Shanghai who promptly sells her to a special buyer who has her shipped to America. She lands in San Francisco illegally, is taken to Portland and eventually ends up in the gold mining town of Warrens, Idaho. Her special buyer turns out to be Hong King, an old Chinese saloon keeper. She becomes his slave and forced concubine, and he changes her name to Polly. The saloon keeper next door, whose name is Charlie Bemis, becomes her protector whenever there is trouble at Hong King's establishment. Hong King won't sell Polly, but one night he uses her as a bid in a poker game. Charlie is the winner. Charlie wants to marry her, but she values her hard-won independence and keeps refusing so they end up living together. Her one desire is to own land and be free, but a Chinaman can't own land in America. Charlie helps her to build a boarding house; and she spends the next 15 years running it, gaining respect by becoming a valuable member in the community, and is motivated by her freedom, intelligence, and dignity to live a life of her own. The last half of the book is also the love story of Charlie and Polly - the tragedies that befell them as well as the celebrations. They eventually built a ranch together on the Salmon River which was 18 miles from Warrens.

The is an inspiring story of a true Chinese pioneer woman. The descriptions of the times, the people, places and events are sensory ones. Polly is a woman who struggled and survived in a land that was not amicable towards the Chinese. The book seems to be disjointed at times, but that may be because parts of her history are not there to be found. There is a movie made from this book - I can't wait to see it. A fast-paced and riveting read.

This was the first book I read by this author and had inspired me to read all her books. The saga of Lalu, who was her father's "thousand pieces of gold", sold by him and ended up in the US, was riveting. I remember sighing after finishing the book and wanting more.

Perhaps due to the author's writing style, the story of Polly does come off as rushed and incomplete.
Overall, I thought this book was a bust.

This was an interesting story that kept me reading. it has a bit of everything - action, tragedy, some cultural aspects, romance and a pretty interesting main character. The story also happens to be true, even is some aspects are fictional. I wish other characters were a bit more complex, but for what it is, this book is a good introduction to the relations between USA and China in the 19th and 20th century, to the slave trade from China and the gold rush. It's a nice, light read, even though many things that happen are not pleasant at all.

What a life Polly has! Easy. Fast read
Good on vacation. Note. Do not read the Essay about Lalu/Polly before you read the book. Read her story then you can see how true it is. Really shows how strong a person can be if she truly believes in oneself. As I read this story I just found it almost impossible to be true, yet it is!

The story reminded me a lot of "The Good Earth", and it was really exciting to read about Polly Bemis' experiences, particularly in Idaho. My only complaint is the writers writing style, which included many questions in the narration.

Most recent book club selection (and we met in person which was kind of nice). I'm rounding this up to a 4, as for me usually "based on a true story" is an absolute kiss of death. But here McCunn does an admirable job, perhaps she is aided by the fact that enough time has passed, that the natural process of "legend-ification" that even happens to us less notable beings, occurs amidst the branches of our own family trees.

The book is written in a very matter of fact manner, with a lot of dialog. The emphasis is on persistence and plot. I would not say the book glosses over desperate times, but it has that reflecting back aspect, like a eulogy that triumphs over the times that were likely harrowing.

Like the love affair between Polly and Charlie, the foundation of this novel is resilient respectability.

I see my edition was re-issued in 2004 (after its 1981 original publication). I could see this slowly growing on the syllabus for late middle-school/early high-school English classes. Especially in Idaho (hello to the girls in Boise I know!) Strong woman, immigrant challenges, homesteading away from the cities, or even worse the suburbs. Lot of checkmarks. There's even a (possibly) kind gay couple that help an aged Polly. Well they are *definitely* kind.

Some of the book club members loved this the way I love the "weirder" stuff we read that tends to repel them. But again, I enjoyed this....tastes like vitamins.

An interesting true story about an Asian experience in early America.

Though this book is brutal and cruel in places, it focuses on resilience and the glories of hard work. I loved it.

i still think about this book to this day, almost a year since ive read it. i genuinely recommend this to literally anyone who is remotely interested, it broke me and built me back up again, absolutely fell headfirst in love with this book

Something I didn't know when I started listening to this book was it is based a real person. This story is considered a historical fiction because some parts of it are considered hearsey and are as of yet unproven. This seems to make the story that much more tragic. Lalu, a young Chinese girl is sold by her father for seed. She is then smuggled to the United States as a slave, bound for Idaho during the gold rush. A time in American history when Chinese immigrants were particularly hated and misused. And yet Polly, renamed once she arrived in Warrens, maintains a kindness and sense of resolve. So much of her life was out of her control and brutal, but she kept a sense of hope and purpose. She eventually becomes as free as a Chinese woman in the late 1800s can be. Manages to make her own life, which is nothing short of remarkable. The book does span the entirety of her life, showing a perspective of the American frontier that is so seldom considered, let alone showed. It did, however, leave me with a burning question that further research into Polly Bemis's life answered.

I became familiar with Lalu/ Polly Nathoy in my senior year of college while enrolled in a Women of the West history class.

The whitewashing of United States history is such that to learn the plight of Chinese women in the mid to late 1800s was not a complete surprise, I’d heard whispers of such, but was still unfamiliar enough that Polly’s story stood out to me in my class.

We watched the film adaptation of this book and her story has been stuck in my head ever since. I’ve rewatched the movie at different points since then, but never took the time to read the book.

This book is the story of Lalu (aka Polly) Nathoy - a woman who was sold by her starving family from China to the United States. When she first arrived in the mining camp of Warrens, ID, initially as a sex slave, through indentured servitude, she eventually created a life of peace with the man she loved, Charlie Bemis.

There is something to be said that she adopted the name her oppressors gave her (Polly), and that her future husband Charlie, won her freedom from indentured servitude in a game of poker. People can take that as they may, but it is evidentially clear that she made the life she wanted from these facts.

She was a premier example of Chinese American settler and her story inspires me to this day and I’m glad I read this book.