The Emperor of Shoes written by Spencer Wise was a surprisingly interesting novel. It did move a little slowly for me and at a few points I wanted to put it down but I kept going and in the end it was quite good.
We travel to China with twenty six year old, Alex Cohen, a Jewish Bostonian, the son of Fedor who has made his career as a shoe manufacturer running a shoe factory in China. Fedor left his family to save the family business, by moving the American shoe company his father started to China. Now it is Alex's turn to start preparing to take over the family business. He comes to China to learn from his father.
Alex is of a new generation. He falls in love with a factory worker and learns of the Chinese Revolution that is starting to work behind the scenes. He is more sensitive to the workers than his father. He starts to want to help the workers instead of paying off the bribes to protect the bottom line. Alex and his father collide over their differing viewpoints, "I was staring straight ahead, but I could feel Dad side-eyeing me. I knew he was thinking I created you. Like how the old rabbis would mold a mythical golem to follow orders- I honestly think that is how Dad saw fatherhood. And now he was worried that his divine creature was beginning to turn against him."
As tensions build we see Alex come into his own, building strength of character as he stands up for what he believes in. His father, sees that the business he built is failing as times change, and he ages out. The Jewish values Alex learned give him the convictions to challenge his father.
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