Since Legacies contains interviews with Ah Yee and stories about Lord's maternal and paternal grandparents, the book is closely related to Eighth Moon. Because it contains additional information about so many family members Legacies adds depth and breath to Eighth Moon. It "rounds" these characters out by telling the reader more about both their past and present.

Although it was published after both Eighth Moon and Legacies, Wu Ningkun's A Single Tear: A Family's Persecution, Love and Endurance in Communist China (1993) is similar because he details his life in China in 1951 to the early 1980s. Although he was ordered by the government to return home to China to teach as a professor, the new Communist government soon labeled him a dangerous counterrevolutionary and subjected him to "thought reform."

His experiences are similar to many of Lord's family members.