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| A lifelong search for truth by Joe Foster Sky Burial by Xinran Xue. Anchor Books, 224 pages. So, there was a commercial quite a while ago for “Monster Ballads,” a CD showcasing the cheesy love songs of some of the great ’80s hair bands. Maybe you remember. The voice-over guy’s pitch was the idea that “Every bad boy has a soft side.” I imagine that all the tough guys who received this CD as a gift from their girlfriends, the guys with combs in their back pockets who worshipped androgynous leather- and velvet-clad, hairsprayed, microphone-lickin’ “bad boys,” were secretly elated that finally all the good songs were available in one place. This one CD seems to have single-handedly ruined the effect of the mixed tape in a romantic relationship. And there went my one good move… “I made you a mixed tape. No big deal.” What the hell is my point, you ask? What the hell kinda clown references “Monster Ballads” in the opening of a review of a book set in Tibet? Well, this kinda clown. A book-dork kinda clown. And the point is this: The love story in this book is incredible. I call it a love story, but it is really just a story about love, and there is a difference. A love story appeals to our sense of comedy, in the Shakespearean sense, the kind of story where everyone that deserves good things gets them in the end. The comedic archetype does not reflect the human condition, unfortunately. No, this is a story about love, the love one woman had for her husband, the kind of love that blasts through death and consumes lives.
Xinran, the author, is a Terri Gross-type radio personality in China. She interviews people with interesting stories. She heard about this woman Shu Wen, who had a worthy story. Xinran drove four hours to meet Shu Wen and spent two days listening to this remarkable woman’s story of her remarkable love, after which Wen disappeared forever. This is true. Xinran finally wrote Shu Wen’s story and ended this fictionalized account with a letter asking anyone that has knowledge of Shu Wen’s whereabouts to contact Xinran so that she can finally find out how this story ends. A very brief rundown of Wen’s story goes thusly: After only a few months of marriage, her new hubby, a doctor, joined the army and goes to Tibet, which China was invading. A few months later, she received notice that he had died. She refused to believe this. A doctor herself, she joined the army and traveled to Tibet to look for him. After being stranded there, alone, she was taken in by a nomadic family. She stayed with them, in Tibet, for 30 years looking for anyone that could give her a clue about the fate of her love. Thirty years. That’s my entire lifetime spent in the search for a hint of a rumor. This is where the bad boy with a soft side disclaimer comes in. I’m no bad boy, but I have a beard, and I can honestly say that I tore through this book in a night, and I was misty-eyed through the entire thing. The trials that this woman endured, the beauty of the people who took her in, the brutal realities of living as a nomad in an environment with an average elevation of 12,000 feet, and her pure strength as she journeyed for decades without doubt or despair are enough that I challenge anyone to read this with a dry eye. Actually, maybe this great story would work well as a test. Give this book to a significant other, and if they’re able to read it without a tear you’ll know that they’re dead inside and you can safely put them in your past and go on about the business of pursuing something real. Shu Wen had something real and beautiful that was taken from her in a meaningless and cruel war. Her lifelong journey in the search for this one truth is almost as beautiful a sacrifice as the one she eventually discovers. •
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The Independent Weekly Line on Durango and Beyond
