Looking for Tank Man

In the clunky latest from Jin (The Banished Immortal), a Chinese Harvard student grows fixated on the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Having never learned of the atrocity as a girl in China, Pei Lulu is shocked to hear of it from a protester on campus in 2008, during a demonstration against the Chinese premier’s visit. Galvanized, Lulu signs up for a seminar on the 1989 democracy movement with a Canadian Chinese professor, who encourages her to pursue graduate work in history, despite her mom’s insistence that she move back to Beijing and marry. On summer trips back to China as an undergraduate and later while pursuing her PhD at Columbia, she learns her mother and father were both involved in the demonstration and is brought in for questioning by the police after she asks others about the events. Unruffled, she continues researching “Tank Man,” the unidentified protestor who briefly stood down the advancing army, as a means to better understanding her past. Jin juxtaposes pedantic summaries of the historical events with awkward episodes devoted to Lulu’s personal life, such as her attempts to navigate unwanted advances from her adviser and a burgeoning love affair with a fellow student. There are pieces of a great novel here, but they don’t hang together. Agent: Lane Zachary, Massie & McQuilkin. (Oct.)