Crimson China by Betsy Tobin

November Book Club

“A dark dramatic story, told with admirable realism and restraint. Unforgettable.” Sue Gee

Crimson China is a novel that traps the reader at the outset, shining a light on a tragic, hidden world that runs in parallel to our own. It is a story of identity and culture, of the irrepressibility of the human spirit, and the powerful undertow of love. Betsy Tobin answered your questions about her book here.

"He glances over at her. Her shoulder length brown hair is matted with wet against the sides of her face, and there are dark circles under her eyes.  He is uncertain of her age. Not young, he decides. Thirty? Forty? He finds it impossible to judge with foreigners. Her clothes are ordinary enough: jeans, a long-sleeved t-shirt and a dark green pullover that now smells of wet wool. The enormous coat she was wearing lies in a sodden ball on the floor of the back seat.  It was the coat he noticed first when she dragged him from the water: made of heavy black wool, it stretched down below her knees and was buttoned up to the neck. No one in their right mind would attempt to rescue a drowning man in such a coat..."

On a freezing night in February, a woman wades into the waters of Morecambe Bay in a drunken bid to commit suicide. Braced for death, she finds herself instead saving a man’s life - a young Chinese cockle picker, one of the only survivors of a tragic mass drowning. For Wen - now missing, presumed dead - Angie provides an unexpected sanctuary. They share neither language nor experience, but she agrees to let him stay with her and "disappear". Within a short time their unlikely pairing blossoms into something darkly passionate. But Wen’s past soon catches up with him. He is still in debt to the snakeheads who brought him out of China. And when his sister, Lili, travels to Britain in search of his memory, she unwittingly seals his fate.

Betsy Tobin was born in the American Midwest and moved to England in 1989. As well as Crimson China she has written three other novels, Bone House, The Bounce and Ice Land. She lives in Islington, London with her husband and four children.

Crimson China was picked for Book at Bedtime on Radio 4. 

"Her writing has weight and resonance." Time Out

"Tobin coaxes these damaged lives into alignment, cutting between points of view with great skill and sensitivity. At times unbearably tense, Crimson China has lots to say about the trade-off between need and exploitation, and the way love can erode cultural difference." Guardian

"Tobin seamlessly incorporates documentary material into the story. This gripping study of loss and redemption is also an authentic portrait of an invisible underclass." Financial Times