Hessler's writing is lovely. His observations are evocative, insightful, and often poignant--and just as often, funny. It's a pleasure to read of his (mis)adventures. Hessler returned to the U.S. with a new perspective on modern China and its people. After reading River Town, you'll have one, too. --Dana Van Nest --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly
In China, the year 1997 was marked by two momentous events: the death of Deng Xiaoping, the country's leader for two decades, and the return of Hong Kong after a century and a half of British rule. A young American who spent two years teaching English literature in a small town on the Yangtze, Hessler observed these events through two sets of eyes: his own and those of his alter ego, Ho Wei. Hessler sees China's politics and ceremony with the detachment of a foreigner, noting how grand political events affect the lives of ordinary people. The passing of Deng, for example, provokes a handful of thoughtful and unexpected essays from Hessler's students. The departure of the British from Hong Kong sparks a conversational "Opium War" between him and his nationalist Chinese tutor. Meanwhile, Ho Wei, as Hessler is known to most of the townspeople, adopts a friendly and unsophisticated persona that allows him to learn the language and culture of his surroundings even as Hessler's Western self remains estranged. The author conceives this memoir of his time in China as the collaborative effort of his double identity. "Ho Wei," he writes, "left his notebooks on the desk of Peter Hessler, who typed everything into his computer. The notebooks were the only thing they truly shared." Yet it's clear that, for Hessler, Ho Wei is more than a literary device: to live in China, he felt compelled to subjugate his real identity to a character role. Hessler has already been assured the approval of a select audience thanks to the New Yorker's recent publication of an excerpt. (Feb.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal
This moving, mesmerizing memoir recounts Hessler's two years as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in the city of Fuling, located in the heart of China. Before Hessler's arrival, no one in Fuling had seen a foreigner for 50 years. Hessler was rudely thrust into this forbidden land, completely isolated from the world as we know it. Armed with astute powers of observation, acute sensitivity to cultural differences, and a good command of Chinese, he explores the culture, politics, traditions, and ideas of a people completely unknown and mysterious to the Western World. Hessler also watches as the cityDtorn between tradition and the onslaught of modern timesDreacts to the death of Deng Xiaoping, the return of Hong Kong to the mainland, and the inevitable construction of the Three Gorges Dam on its beloved, and sacred, Yangtze River. This touching memoir of an American dropped into the center of China transcends the boundaries of the travel genre and will appeal to anyone wanting to learn more about the heart and soul of the Chinese people. Highly recommended.
-DMelinda Stivers Leach, Precision Editorial Svcs., Wondervu, CO
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
American Peter Hessler arrives in Fuling, an industrial town on the Yangtze River in communist China. He teaches English and literature at a local college, where he is viewed as waiguoron, or foreigner, someone who must be viewed with suspicion and preferably at a distance. He gradually is able to break through some of the obstacles and form friendships with a number of locals. Hessler is in China during a time of tremendous internal change--the death of Deng Xiaoping, the return of Hong Kong from Great Britain to China, and the Three Gorges Project. He describes some frightening times. Once a band of local Chinese police visited him in the middle of the night. He and his fellow worker Adam unwittingly attract and then incite a hostile local crowd. Then there is the sheer physical discomfort of spending much of 50 hours standing on a Chinese train. This is a colorful memoir from a Peace Corps volunteer who came away with more understanding of the Chinese than any foreign traveler has a right to expect. Marlene Chamberlain
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman
"Tender, intelligent, and insightful, [this]is the work of a writer of rare talent; it deserves to become a classic." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Ha Jin, author of Waiting
"Suffused with candor, compassion, insights, and intimate knowledge, River Town is a wonderful read." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Abraham Verghese, author of The Tennis Partner and My Own Country
"Hessler writes beautifully... memoir, travelogue, and astute anthropological writing woven into a book that is difficult to put down." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Tim Cahill, author of Pass the Butterworms and Road Fever
"RIVER TOWN is at once profoundly insightful, sharply critical, deeply admiring, thoroughly unsentimental, precisely written, and often very, very funny." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Kirkus - starred review
"A vivid and touching tribute to a place and its people." --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Kirkus Reveiws
An atmospheric story of love and architecture in war-torn Finland and 1920s New York . Linger[s] in the memory. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Kirkus Reveiws
An atmospheric story of love and architecture in war-torn Finland and 1920s New York . Linger[s] in the memory. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Book Description

In the heart of China's Sichuan province, tucked away amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this vast and ever-evolving country, Fuling is shifting gears and heading down a new path, one of change and vitality, tension and reform, disruption and growth.

Its position at the crossroads came into sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. Hessler taught English and American literature at the local college, but it was his students who taught him about the ways of Fuling -- and about the complex process of understanding that takes place when one is immersed in a radically different society. Poignant, thoughtful, funny, and enormously compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that, much like China itself, is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be.