Rating: 
Summary: Heaven Lake Was More Like Hell's Fire
Review: I found a description of this book in a magazine that bestowed the novel with great reviews but warned potential readers to give it many pages before it took off in earnest. I actually read this novel before "Caught Stealing". The story revolved around a young Christian missionary named Vincent sent to Taiwan in order to establish a ministry house. At first, Vincent focused on spreading God's word, but eventually other distractions eliminated any of his original good intentions. Vincent's first mistake was to explore a sexual relationship with a female student and his second misstep was to allow himself to become the pawn of a wealthy China businessman named Mr. Gwa. Vincent also established a relationship with a drug addict Scotsman named Alec to further complicate things. All of these relationships (and many more) were explored in great detail (in many cases the specifics bored me to tears). Once Vincent's missionary plans fizzled, he ended up agreeing to a ludicrous plan (due to circumstances arising from his fall from grace) to seek out a young woman for Mr. Gwa in Mainland China. Vincent was hired to make the difficult journey through China to secure Mr. Gwa's fiancé and to partake in a marriage ceremony that would be annulled once he returned to Taiwan. Most of the book followed Vincent's journey across the enormous and complicated country. Again, Dalton's detailed description of China and its people ultimately depressed me to tears and made me grateful to be a citizen of the United States. What most reviewers found enticing with the novel, I found excruciating, and I never truly enjoyed my own figurative travels through China with Vincent. One thing I definitely decided after reading Dalton's account of China: I never want to go to the abysmal place he described! If travel stories are your thing, then this novel might be for you. Sure the story was complex and the characters were uniquely troubled and sometimes enthralling. However, I live too uncanny of a life (many of my friends already know about some of my wacky experiences and the extreme people I've encountered) to find penniless, defrocked, ex-Christian missionaries interesting enough to sit through nearly 500 pages of verbiage. Sorry, but this novel was not for me.
Jay's Grade: C+
May 21, 2004
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book!
Review: I had just finished reading "The Kite Runner" when I turned around and picked up Heaven Lake. As usually happens when I finish a particularly good book, I was expecting a let down. Consequently I was very pleased to find myself shifting from one really excellent book to another.
Heaven Lake is a story about an American "Jesus teacher," a missionary in Taiwan whose conviction about his religion, while sincere, is just a tad sanctimonious and disrespectful toward the "unsaved". His concern for their souls, while also sincere, is just a tad patronizing. His version of the truth must be spread.
His certainty is a little shaken by the arrival of another missionary, whose conviction is belligerent and self-righteous and even borders on the psychotic. In watching this woman and feeling ashamed and embarrassed by their association, he begins to question the wisdom of forcing his beliefs on strangers.
He's a genuinely good man with good intentions. Consequently, he is appalled by a local businessman's suggestion that he accept $10,000 to travel across mainland China in order to bring back a woman to be the businessman's bride. Because of the difficulty in obtaining a marriage license between the Taiwanese and the Chinese, the deal requires him to 1) marry the woman (the government is more lenient with marriages to foreigners), 2) establish her in Taiwan so she can more easily marry her intended husband, 3) divorce her and 4) turn her over to him.
Like I said, he's initially appalled. Then an affair he has with a student and the subsequent beating her brother gives him make him question his faith, his safety in Taiwan, and his future. The businessman's proposition gives him an excuse to leave Taiwan and the angry brother. It also gives him an opportunity to break ties with the missionary, which he's grown to feel increasingly hypocritical being involved with.
So he makes the arrangements and off he goes, traveling across China in what can only be described as a nightmare travelogue, to marry a woman he's never met.
The book is filled with realism, very well-drawn characters, and a story that isn't predictable at all. It was a great story and very well-written. I thoroughly enjoyed every word of it, and highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: A Stunning Discovery
Review: I have been friends with John Dalton's sister, Carla, for 15 years. For many of those years I heard her positive, encouraging comments about her brother's manuscript during its birthing process. She tried to explain the plot line of Heaven Lake to help me understand his talent and dedication to its completion. As her friend, I tried the best I could to share her enthusiasm for the book and her brother's struggles in writing it.Despite this foreknowledge, I was totally unprepared for the stunning power of John Dalton's writing talent when I finally had my copy of Heaven Lake in my hands. By page three I was "hooked" and carried it everywhere with me until I had finished it. In beautiful prose, John Dalton has told the tale of today's "Everyman" -- with Vincent the true embodiment of every common, ordinary, idealistic, and naive college graduate who ventures into and through early adult life with all of its real choices, decisions, and consequences. I found myself shaking my head at Vincent's "blunders" and nodding with understanding at his painful progress toward personal, emotional, and spiritual growth. This book is a compelling and satisfying read. It grabs your interest and won't let go. Do not fear that this is just a "travelogue" of China. . .it is so unbelievably rich and real in its characterizations, descriptions, and events that you almost forget this book is fiction and find yourself disappointed to say farewell to Vincent when the last page is turned.
Rating:
Summary: Great read
Review: I really enjoyed this book. I felt like I was right by Vincent's side the entire trip. I totally recomend this book to read. Other things I have read are Clancy, cj box, Hillerman, and Krakauer. This not a fast paced book. You are on a journey through the far east. I wish it could have gone on for two hundred more pages.
Rating:
Summary: A haunting journey through a ragged country
Review: I thought this was a beautiful first novel with twists and turns that kept me going until the very last page...then i returned my library book and bought this book in hard cover to have and to re-read and to recommend to friends. A lesser author would have taken some easy ways out of the plot but this author shares brilliantly a lovely, subtle story of love and friendship.
Rating:
Summary: An American in China
Review: I've read other books about China.:those I enjoyed--Amy Tan's novels, and Women of the Silk-- and those I didn't like--Waiting and Cloud Mountain-- but I've never felt personally involved in the way that I did as I read Heaven Lake. This view of China by an outsider is fresher and more honest than the other books. Vincent is often confused and irritated by the differences in cultures, but as the novel progresses he gains insight and appreciation for these things, without pretending to understand everything. His spiritual transformation is realistic, as is his gradual maturation. It is only when he humbles himself to Jia Ling and Mrs. Liang that he gains the trust and respect of his neighbors.
The other characters are treated realistically as well. Alec accepts the consequences of his actions, but the reader wonders if four years in a Chinese prison will set him on a straight path. Although he is older and more experienced than Vincent, he lacks Vincent's integrity and maturity. If Vincent were the one who had been arrested by customs officials, Alec would not have returned to see that his friend was in no physical danger.
The women characters are less rounded than the men, but as we're seeing them through Vincent's limited experience, this too seems real. He only begins to fathom the depth of Jia Ling's personality when he muses upon her photograph. His acceptance of responsibility for her, and his agreement to stay in Taiwan until his "debt" to Mr. Hwa and Ponic is repaid, demonstrate his commitment to her, and the fact that he keeps this arrangement to himself shows that he has gained humility along with character.
I will strongly recommend this book to my book group. Its unusual combination of suspense, depth and fascinating detail will capture their imagination and engender spirited discussion.
Rating:
Summary: The Best in Reading
Review: If you love good reading and a story that keeps you involved, this is the book to read. It has it all, words that flow, a story to remember and talk about. A book to be remembered. We might see this acted out on the big scren soon. It is a story that could be relived up there on the big screen for us all. Get the book wrap yourself in the landscape and go where the story takes you. Mary Jane Henderson
Rating:
Summary: Buy This Book!
Review: In 1981, shortly after China had re-opened to the world, I had the great good fortune to spend a month traveling there. At that time, all men and women wore Mao suits; only toddlers were clothed in kaleidoscopic swatches of material, seemingly in protest of the enforced uniformity and drabness of the grey-blue suits. Foreigners were such a rarity that, if I went for a walk, inevitably, I would be approached by a Chinese person who had learned English by listening to the radio and wanted to practice. Soon I and my friendly Chinese interrogator would be engulfed by a crowd. When the conversation ended, my new friend would turn and report to the crowd what he had learned from me about Western culture, politics, education -- whatever we had discussed. I also remember once being chased down the street of a remote village by a young mother holding her infant, communicating by gestures and a desperate expression that this was, perhaps, the only chance she might ever have to get a Polaroid picture of her precious baby. To this day I regret that I didn't have that type of camera. Twenty-three years after I left China, John Dalton, with his beautiful and brilliant book, Heaven Lake, took me further into that country than I had traveled and allowed me to better understand what I had experienced there. This is a vast novel, not only in its geographical scope, but in its understanding of the human heart. Dalton, through the creation of complex characters and the skillful use of the methaphor of an arduous journey, conveys perceptive insights: that "life is rich with an innate and mysterious possibility;" that trouble happens and happiness is fleeting; that people understand you better than you think they do; and that "[m]aybe the successful lives [are] those that are gracefully endured." Dalton's is a wise and poetic voice, not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: A Well Crafted Delight to Read.
Review: It is no wonder that this was a Book of the Month Club alternate selection. It has the substance and quality of a finely crafted literary novel, but it was also a hard-to-put-down, good read. The pacing was perfect, and like all good story tellers, John Dalton left me wanting more. Moreover, he gives us an insider's view of the culture of China without slowing the plot: It was a seemless tapestry.
Rating:
Summary: A Well Crafted Delight to Read.
Review: It is no wonder that this was a Book of the Month Club alternate selection. It has the substance and quality of a finely crafted literary novel, but it was also a hard-to-put-down, good read. The pacing was perfect, and like all good story tellers, John Dalton left me wanting more. [Mr. Dalton, in case you read this, drop whatever your are doing and get busy on a sequel.] Moreover, he gives us an insider's view of the culture of China without slowing the plot: It was a seemless tapestry.
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