The Golden Road describes a young man of humble urban origins in China's lower Yangzi Valley who foresees the opportunities for wealth and position in the early years of Deng Xiaoping's "reform and opening up" policies and who then over the next twenty years creates a diversified business empire. This novel thus tells of the reemergence in China of a dynamic, often reckless and shady, commercial class during the momentous transformation of that country during the Deng Xiaoping era. Business people used many tricks as well as connections with the local power structure to survive and succeed in...