The book I read and reviewed for this issue is Two Trees Make a Forest: in Search of My Family’s Past Among Taiwan’s Mountains and Coasts by Jessica J. Lee. This is the second book I have reviewed that had been recommended by my sister Martha Scheinman. Two subjects about which I knew very little are at the core of this book, Taiwan’s history and extremes of topography coved by diverse vegetation.

Lee uses her family’s story and her travels through the island to retell its history and describe its plant life. Through a telling of her family’s past, we learn the fraught history of the country. It is travel writing where the unique itinerary of a traveler takes the reader into a sensory experience as the author explores the landscape by foot and bike, taking us close to the plants growing everywhere. Rain, puddles, dripping trees and a cold pond challenge the author as she searches for an understanding of her grandfather and why he left and then returned to Taiwan toward the end of his life.

Lee’s grandparents left China for Taiwan after the Second World War and stayed for nearly 40 years, before immigrating to Canada with Lee’s mother. When Lee was 18, she became aware of her grandfather’s Alzheimer’s. She realized how little she knew of her grandparents’ lives. She had not questioned why he had left Taiwan. After he returned and passed away there, Lee and her mother visited. She writes that the country called them back and regrets staying away so long. She had visited only as a baby. Her exploration continues over more than one trip.

After Lee’s grandmother’s death, Lee’s mother discovered an envelope with unsent letters of her father’s with belongings he had left in Canada. She let her daughter have them and to Lee they became a map of discovery. She learns how integral the forest trees are to her name, in the Chinese characters. The books takes some persistence to read through as each section presents new subjects and information, however, the family story drew me along.