John Jenkins Espey (1913–2000)

Accurately described as "the blithe and diverting chronicle of a happy childhood in Shanghai by the author of Minor Heresies and Tales out of School, do not look for insights into Chinese life and culture in the 1910s and 1920s. Full of nursery tales, memories and images of a young man and his older sister born into a missionary family in Shanghai, there are amusing tales of school days at one of the oldest SAS schools in the world (American Schools Abroad), foreign dentists, and family friends, but very little of the world of his amahs, his family's household servants or the world that existed beyond that of a young boy living in a foreign enclave. His story ends when he departs China for college in 1930. This memoire was written when he was serving as a Professor of English at UCLA in 1950, when I had hoped some distance and experience might have elicited a more mature perspective. At the time of its publication, its reviewers lauded it for its "winning gayety, humor and charm" and "memorably sweet irony". All of which is true. One really can't hold too much against the author--as children our worlds revolve around ourselves, don't they? How often have we picked up a childhood diary to discover our total ignorance of the world we were oblivious to. Could this be the meaning of the title, The Other City?… (mehr)

Oh, I am so pleased to see that this fantastic book is once again in print. I stumbled upon my copy at our local used book store with no idea of the delights waiting for me. My copy, just called Minor Heresies, presumably the first section of this currently available omnibus, is dated 1947. I cannot put it down. I would not have guessed that a memoir about life as a missionary's child in Shanghai in the period between WWI and WWII could be so fun. I was not surprised at all that several chapters of this memoir were first published in the New Yorker in the 1940s. The book is written with that kind of amused and intelligent voice that you often find there. But the story is a singular one. I am thrilled that I picked up two of Espey's books this weekend because I am almost finished with this one and don't want to put it down. How can it be that I had not heard of this author before? Definitely an under-rated classic!… (mehr)