Petit, Caroline

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Petit, Caroline

PERSONAL: Born in Washington, DC; married. Education: Degrees from Chatham College (Pittsburgh, PA), Johns Hopkins University, London School of Economics, and University of Melbourne Law School.

ADDRESSES: Home—Victoria, Australia. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Soho Press, 853 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

CAREER: Write Angle Productions, writer and producer.

WRITINGS:

The Fat Man's Daughter (novel), Soho Press (New York, NY), 2005.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Short stories.

SIDELIGHTS: Caroline Petit's debut novel, The Fat Man's Daughter, depicts the Japanese invasion of China through the eyes of a Westerner, a beautiful young woman named Leah Kolbe. The story begins in 1937. Leah's father, a dealer in antiquities whose ethics are questionable, dies suddenly and leaves her adrift in Hong Kong. Her inheritance has been lost through risky investments made by her father's business associates, and Leah is unsure whether she belongs among the Chinese or in proper colonial society. She is approached by a mysterious Mr. Chang, who convinces her that in order to set her father's business straight, she must begin smuggling valuable items out of Japanese-occupied territory to benefit the Chinese resistance. Along with other members of the resistance, Leah passes through Nanking on her way to Hong Kong, just before the terrible 1938 invasion by the Japanese that subsequently became known as the "rape of Nanking." A romance with a handsome but possibly villainous Portuguese man, Cezar da Silva, adds another facet to the story.

A reviewer for Publishers Weekly found Leah and her comrades to be "thinly drawn," but stated that Petit does a good job of presenting Leah's story with a sense of "exotic action-adventure." A Kirkus Reviews writer found that The Fat Man's Daughter has "too many characters and loose ends," but nevertheless deemed it "a decorative evocation of place and period."