![]() ![]() The smell of death and decay collided with the smell of French perfume. In Shanghai Girls, See writes about how Shanghai was a city of extreme contrast, where babies were left to die on the sidewalk as people stepped around them. "That time period in China was very glamorous on the one hand, and yet war was coming, there was a lot of turmoil politically." "Over the years, I have thought about, 'What were those girls like? What were their lives like?' " she tells NPR's Melissa Block. It's an advertisement for bug spray, so dead insects fall around them. The ad, part of a collection See has accumulated, shows two girls sitting together in beautiful summer dresses. One of those romanticized ads was an impetus for See's novel. ![]() May and Pearl are what are known as "beautiful girls" - models for artists who use their images on posters and calendars to sell cigarettes, soap and baby milk. It's 1937, just before the Japanese invaded China during World War II, and their lives are about to be upended. In Shanghai Girls, a new novel by Lisa See, sisters May and Pearl Chin glide around Shanghai in rickshaws wearing gorgeous, tightfitting silk dresses. ![]()
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