Su Xiaokang had faced calamity before: in 1989, after the Tiananmen Square massacre, he became the object of a government manhunt and was forced to flee China, leaving behind his wife and young son. Eventually his family was allowed to join him in exile in the United States, and he believed the worst was behind him. Then a terrible automobile accident left his wife, Fu Li, unable to move or speak.
In this remarkably honest account, Su, who blamed himself for his family's disaster, writes wrenchingly of his inner torment and despair. He describes the pain of living in exile, his desperate...