It Is Just That Your House Is So Far Away

Jeff Mott is drifting across China, in part because he wants to learn the language. He starts teaching in a small town north of Beijing, where he meets a young woman, Wang Bian Fu, and falls in love; however, as they get to know each other, Bian Fu's family life and emotions seem increasingly more complex and disturbing--there is more to her than he can handle, he senses, something hidden. They become engaged. He begins to miss his young daughter back in Canada. And then he learns the truth about his Chinese fiancee--a truth concealed behind her considerable deception. His heart divided, he must make a choice, and flies back to Canada, promising to return. Separated, the lovers continue to plan, through their heated and awkward long-distance telephone calls, and through the Chinese characters, the ancient poems and proverbs, mangled in Jeff's fumbling words. As they head towards marriage, Jeff wonders is it Bian Fu that he loves? or China? or is it that he has imagined both of them as he wishes, not as they are. As Confucius says near the end of the novel, "It is not that I do not love you, it is just that your house is so far away." Poignant and ironic, and searchingly funny, "It is Just That Your House is So Far Away" delivers a Beijing love story and a vision of 1990s China on the edge of globalism.