“It is in the natural order of literature that famed authoress Anchee Min's (Red Azalea; Becoming Madame Mao) significant other, Lloyd Lofthouse, is the latest author to join the ranks of China historical fiction writers with his highly-anticipated debut novel, My Splendid Concubine, which traces the true-life exploits of Sir Robert Hart.
Lofthouse's Hart is not the idol that encyclopedias portray him as; he is a flawed man. Enticed into purchasing his first concubine, boat-girl Ayaou, Hart is at once disgusted and stirred by the thought of "taking bids on her virginity," but admits to himself that "it bothered him more that he found the idea tempting."
Regardless of the novel's title, Ayaou is not Sir Robert Hart's "concubine." For all intents and purposes, she is stolen property liberated by Hart from a rival. Hart's true splendid concubine is in fact Ayaou's little sister. Only fourteen years old, the blossoming Shao-mei is admittedly even more desirable than Ayaou. "I'm not a finished woman, but I am a woman." She slid her hands down the length of her nude torso to her vulva..."
My Splendid Concubine is rife with the sexual dalliances of a white man adrift in China ("What a strange night, a strange place and strange girls"). Lofthouse also plaits his page-turning story with amusing cultural anecdotes that surely must have come from the author's personal observations of China ("Live here long enough, see crazy things").
Lloyd Lofthouse is to be commended for writing a novel that so cleverly balances an engaging tale of culture and romance with a wealth of period detail that will educate readers about dynastic China as thoroughly as any university textbook.
Though a "moral hero" in China, My Splendid Concubine depicts another half of Sir Robert Hart: the dark half. Conscious that historical fiction readers demand potboilers over academic fare, Lofthouse plays on Hart's notoriety, and obviously has fun while doing it.
But behind the scandalous, revisionist adventures My Splendid Concubine is a comprehensible and remarkably accurate narrative history of real-life man whom the author quite obviously admires.”
