Luck of the Titanic by Stacey Lee

 

Synopsis:

Valora Luck has two things: a ticket for the biggest and most luxurious ocean liner in the world, and a dream of leaving England behind and making a life for herself as a circus performer in New York. Much to her surprise, though, she's turned away at the gangway; apparently, Chinese people aren't allowed into America.

But Val has to get on that ship. Her twin brother, Jamie, who has spent two long years at sea, is on board, as is an influential circus owner. Thankfully, there's not much a trained acrobat like Val can't overcome when she puts her mind to it.

As a stowaway, Val should keep her head down and stay out of sight. But the clock is ticking and she has just seven days as the ship makes its way across the Atlantic to find Jamie, audition for the circus owner, and convince him to help get them both into America.

Then one night, the unthinkable happens, and suddenly Val's dreams of a new life are crushed under the weight of the only thing that matters: survival. 

My Thoughts:

I'm not going to lie, I enjoyed the Titanic movie with Kate Winslet when it first came out. I sang along with the Celine Dion song and everything. But the movie has changed our cultural understanding of the Titanic disaster, and what we expect while reading historical Titanic fiction.

This means we must talk about romance. The Titanic movie is very romantic, but it's just a snapshot of two fictional people. I doubt most of the survivors of the Titanic thought of their experiences as romantic, and Luck of the Titanic is also more realistic than romantic. There are tinges of romance here and there, but first and foremost it's a story about survival. Valora is an orphan whose employer has recently passed away. Her only living family is her twin brother, Jamie, and so she smuggles herself onto the Titanic to join him.

Europe and America were not friendly places for Chinese people, and Valora, Jamie, and Jamie's found family (of fellow Chinese coworkers) experienced a lot of racism while on the ship. America's Chinese Exclusion Act even outright banned Chinese immigrants from entering the country. However, Valora and Jamie were taught acrobatics from their father, and had become exceptionally good at their two person act, and there was a business partner for Ringling Bros aboard the Titanic. Impressing the circus mogul was the only way Valora could get to America, and keep her family together at the same time.

I loved this novel. Valora was a vivid, determined character, and I admired her drive. She needed to keep her dwindling family together, and couldn't understand why Jamie wanted to live apart. April and her fashion business were fun pops of what might otherwise be a grim story of survival. Stacey Lee writes exceptional historical novels about Chinese people living in hostile early America, and this novel is extremely powerful.

*Just a side note: I didn't know that Chinese were actually on the Titanic, but there were eight Chinese men aboard, and six of them survived the disaster. All survivors of the Titanic were welcomed into America except these six men, who were turned away due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, and their stories have all but been omitted from the fabric of Titanic lore. You could read more about it here.