“A work of fiction is not just to amuse ourselves for the moment, but to enlarge our view of life – to reveal to us a bit of what we had not felt or intuited before.” – Lilia Hernandez Chung
In her novel “The Rush of the River,” former Foothill College teacher Lilia Hernandez Chung accomplishes just that. Her autobiographical stories enlarge the reader’s view of life in the Philippines before World War II during the Japanese occupation and the American liberation of Leyte and Cebu. Published in 2004, her work does not have a single theme; rather, it comprises seven stories, each named after a member or close associate of the Gracielas, a wealthy Filipino family. It can be enjoyed as a complete novel or one story at a time.
Because she believes some truths are best expressed indirectly, Chung uses a fable to introduce each story’s theme. The fable is followed by a brief description of the story’s setting. In “The Town,” for example, she writes, “The town (Soledad) had always had a strong sense of what was right and what was wrong, of duty and of obligation – until the war, that is. Then it was as though everybody willed themselves to be careful, to be crafty, to be greedy. Survival demanded no less.”
Laura Schiff, a former member of Foothill’s creative writing faculty, described Chung’s style as “elegant, sensitive, and rich. … Her eye for the human essentials … makes her stories more than period pieces – they are fine literature.” Schiff likened them to the stories of Anton Chekhov.
Born in Manila, Chung came to the United States on a Fulbright grant in 1961 and earned a doctorate at Syracuse University. Because her life here was so different, she was able to view her homeland more objectively. Chung’s altered perspective of the Philippines became the stimulus for her book, which took 10 years to write.
In the 1970s, Chung organized recruitment activities and developed a curriculum in ethnic studies and history to attract Asian American students to Foothill College.
How did she select the title for her book? “Rivers have different depths and rhythms,” she said. “Sometimes they are serene, sometimes turbulent. And sometimes they flow off course. I find the river a very apt metaphor for life.”
Chung lives in Stanford with her husband, a retired professor, and is working on her second novel, “Esperanza.”
“The Rush of the River” is available at Books Inc. on Castro Street in Mountain View and online at amazon.com.
