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51 pages 1 hour read

Chloe Gong

Foul Lady Fortune

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2022

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Themes

A Country Divided

Although Foul Lady Fortune might be considered a young adult fantasy novel, it’s also grounded in China’s history during the 1930s. At that time, the country was suffering an identity crisis. The West had been trading with China for hundreds of years and had exerted an effect on its culture and values. Additionally, Japan was making incursions into the north of the country in its quest for resources to feed its new industrial economy. The novel mentions the Japanese conquest of Manchuria in 1931, which effectively began the pattern that eventually led to World War II a decade later. Aside from European colonialism and Japanese imperialism, the Chinese themselves were transitioning from a monarchy, leaving the people conflicted about whether to choose democracy or Communism as an alternative form of government.

All these macro-level issues are expressed in the behavior of the book’s major characters. Rosalind and her family are emerging from a period when powerful gangs ruled Shanghai. She’s a survivor of a destructive gangland war between the Scarlet Gang and the White Flowers that left most of her family dead. Her own collusion with Dimitri Voronin is largely responsible for the catastrophe. After being disowned by her family, Rosalind is no longer sure who she is or where she fits in the new social order of Shanghai. Her confusion makes her susceptible to influence, and her superpowers draw the interest of the Nationalists, who recruit her. Rosalind’s sister, Celia, has aligned herself with the Communists, placing her at odds with her only surviving relative.

Similarly, Orion finds himself enmeshed in the political controversy raised by his father’s supposed collusion with the Japanese. He doesn’t want to believe the worst about his parent, so he blindly defends the general. This places him in an adversarial position with his brother, Oliver, who takes the contrary view. The siblings square off in opposing political camps, mirroring their internal family strife. In addition, Phoebe is pulled into the sibling squabble, seemingly allying herself with Orion while she works secretly as a Communist assassin for Oliver.

Even Liza suffers a crisis of identity based on the political chaos surrounding her. After the fall of gang rule in Shanghai, she’s a woman without a country. What remains of the Scarlet Gang has been recruited by the Nationalists. This automatically forces anyone associated with the White Flowers into the opposite camp. Thus, she becomes a Communist agent by default, but her allegiance to their cause is questionable at every turn. All the central characters in Foul Lady Fortune are mirrors, reflecting the lack of cohesion in China as a whole.

Shifting Personas and Authentic Identity

While China’s political divisions are reflected in the fluctuating allegiances of the book’s central characters, they also exhibit behavior highlighting another theme—that of shifting personas and authentic identities. When the narrative first introduces Rosalind, she’s known as the assassin Lady Fortune. Her real name is Rosalind Lang, but she’s presumed dead. During her time as a spy, she uses the cover name Janie Mead. While installed as an employee at Seagreen, she’s known by yet another alias when she poses as Orion’s wife. Only Dao Feng, Celia, and Liza know her real name. Even Orion is left guessing. He doesn’t find out that she’s the top assassin for the Nationalists until the novel’s conclusion. While Rosalind’s sister, Celia, appears to be a straightforward Communist agent, she harbors an overarching allegiance to her sister. Her identity shift may be the greatest of all since she was born as a biological male but lives her life as a female.

Liza was formerly a member of a Russian crime family. Although she can’t disguise her Russian heritage, she takes a new name while working at Seagreen. As the story unfolds, she plays many other roles in service to both the Nationalists and the Communists. Jiemin, the spy handler, appears as an adolescent clerk during much of the novel until he steps into the role of an authority at the novel’s end. His predecessor, Dao Feng, is likewise not what he appears to be; he’s a double agent bearing a Communist code name. Silas is another double agent with his own code name, who is pretending to be a Communist.

The Entire Hong family is a mass of multiple identities. General Hong is colluding with the Japanese even though he’s exonerated of these charges. His retiring wife turns out to be the mastermind behind the chemical experiments at the warehouse. Oliver is a Communist agent acting as the handler for his little sister, who is the top Communist assassin at age 17. Orion is branded a playboy by the news media but is really a Nationalist spy. While at Seagreen, he plays the role of Rosalind’s doting husband. He must keep up this pretense by moving into her apartment too. Of course, the greatest identity switch is the one Orion doesn’t even realize he’s made. As a sleeper agent under his mother’s control, he has been killing drug test subjects all over the city. The dizzying identity switches in the novel leave all the characters asking one question: “Who are you really?”

The Quest for Redemption

As Foul Lady Fortune begins, Rosalind Lang is already carrying a heavy burden of guilt. Although the novel is the first in a series, it succeeds a duology involving the same characters. In the events that preceded the current novel, Rosalind’s emotional attachment to Dimitri led to ruin for her family and much of her city. Consequently, Rosalind is driven by the need to atone for her mistakes. In the novel’s first scene, she assassinates one of the remaining White Flowers as an act of revenge. In addition, she has allowed the Nationalists to use her as a killing machine to eliminate their foes. She commits all these crimes in the name of redemption:

Maybe she was lying to herself. Maybe she had chosen to kill because she didn’t know how else to prove her worth. More than anything in the world, Rosalind Lang wanted redemption, and if this was how she got it, then so be it (14).

Orion seems to be on a parallel trajectory at the beginning of the novel. He regrets the ruin of his family name and seeks to restore the Hong reputation by becoming a Nationalist agent. Like Rosalind, he thinks that if he destroys enough enemies, he can erase the past. The novel’s grimmest irony is that Orion is being used to further his family’s corrupt agenda without his knowledge. By the end of the novel, when his role as a sleeper agent is revealed, he feels an even deeper sense of self-loathing than Rosalind does.

As the two of them commiserate over their flawed attempts to find redemption, Rosalind says:

“Your life is mine as mine is yours.” It was an echo of her statement from days earlier, but now it was ringing with an entirely different caliber. “If I promise to save myself, can you promise to forgive yourself? Can we make an exchange?” (473).

Her words offer forgiveness, but Orion still can’t forgive himself. He advises Rosalind that she can’t fix a broken city, yet she’ll continue to blame herself if she doesn’t try to do the impossible. Neither character seems willing to let themself off the hook for past mistakes. While they can easily forgive one another, they feel their own deficiencies too keenly to allow themselves the same mercy. Each has fallen short in their own estimation, and their only solution is the Sisyphean task of trying harder. Redemption will continue to elude them both until they see the futility of this approach.

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