Scenes intricately carved into a narwhal tusk show the future of a city "at the Bend in the River," and the Emperor's chosen three — his favourite concubine, head Confucian, and personal bodyguard — must set events in motion so that these prophecies are fulfilled, by passing their traditions down through the generations.

About two thousand years later, in the mid 19th century, the descendants of the chosen three watch as Shanghai is invaded by opium traders and missionaries from Europe, America, and the Middle East.

One family is that of Silas Hardoon, an Iraqi Jew at the centre of more than one scandal, marrying his Chinese mistress and later adopting nearly forty neighbourhood orphans.

[5][note 1] Rotenberg had six weeks until rehearsals began, and used this time to explore the city with his translator: "Instead of visiting all the usual tourist sites, he went into all the small, dark alleys and chalked up impressions.

"[7] To that end, emphasis is placed on the character being "caught between his Jewish roots and his new home's ancient philosophies," and he is witness to his father Richard's "crippling" addiction.

Rotenberg compared his novel to Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, a "counterfactual" historical narrative that imagines a Nazi takeover of the United States in the 1930s.

Rotenberg did "extensive research", thereby allowing him to address "difficult subjects" such as the practice of foot binding, depicted in what Sarah Weinman calls a "horrifying scene" in which a young girl reacts stoically to the process: the description is "rooted in verisimilitude from consulting doctors on the precise procedure".

But then I saw a photo exhibit in London about the massacre, where I learned about 18 American missionaries who convinced the Japanese to mark a safe zone in Nanking, and found my way in.

[7] Jurgen Gothe calls it "a massive, fascinating, and powerful book that spans genres, maybe confounds them", and asserts that Rotenberg "possesses a prodigious memory for atmosphere and place, and good research skills.

"[6]What makes Shanghai so readable and well paced is the unique mix Rotenberg throws into the ring: grace, style, sensitivity, anger, questions... And so the story comes out dreamy and hallucinatory, mysterious and mystical, spiritual and ghostly; comic at times, from lyrical subtlety to total slapstick.