WELCOME

Sunday, January 26, 2020  ∗  4:00 PM

The Pardee Carriage House salon welcomes Jeffrey Staley, author of Gum Moon: A Novel of San Francisco Chinatown. We will celebrate the Chinese New Year with Mr. Staley, who will share the harrowing, heartbreaking, and inspirational story of his wife's Grandmother and the history of enslaved Chinese girls in turn of the century San Francisco.

After the lecture we shall adjourn to the Pardee home to toast the New Year with a wonderful reception featuring hors d'oeuvres, traditional dim sum, an array of sweets and savories, and champagne and non-alcoholic beverages; a great way to begin 2020. 

Reservations may be made at Brown Paper Tickets or by calling Richelle Lieberman at 510.381.1973

About the Book // This book follows Chun, a.k.a. Maud, from 1898, when she was sold into slavery at her sale at the age of three, to her early teens in a San Francisco brothel. Poverty leads Chun’s mother to sell her to a brothel owner where Chinese girls served men until they were old enough to do sexwork. It is a story of survival, escape, transformation, and one girl's experience with abuse, the 1906 earthquake, and perseverance. 

Though a work of fiction, the tale isbased on the experiences of the author's family, as well as on missionary society records. The story from the filth and debauched cruelty of the brothel, to the President’s office, to the boredom of a child on a long train ride is told with honesty and perception.